


Vintage Datemates

by FlyByNightGirl



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Agent Carter TV Show Compliant, Bucky and Angie are bffs, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, M/M, Steve and Peggy are pals, basically I wanted an excuse to write ex-sniper Sergeant Barnes as a waiter, well at least bi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-03-23 02:25:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 195,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyByNightGirl/pseuds/FlyByNightGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1945 Cpt. Rogers grabbed Sgt. Barnes's hand and saved him from falling out of a train. Together, they parachuted out of a plane spiraling for the ice.</p><p>A few months later the war is over, but what can the grand US of A do with a ex-showgirl war-hero and his deadly sniper second in command?</p><p>The same thing they do with Agent Peggy Carter. Shove 'em in the SSR. </p><p>(This is basically the TV show Agent Carter except Steve and Bucky are bffs with Peggy and Angie and it’s all around fabulous vintage gayness)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a little bird once said to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone made [a post](http://sonickitty.tumblr.com/post/112072054165/maria-tries-au-in-which-everything-is-flipped) about Angie & Peggy switching places with Steve & Bucky (if you want to read that fic someone is writing it [here)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3496076/chapters/7682099) But I couldn't get [the picture of Bucky as a waiter in the 40's](http://40.media.tumblr.com/80f71a9da4407e5d19d4879d5b6ff94e/tumblr_nkcguvmgs81t1j1tdo2_500.png) out of my head. 
> 
> Hence, I painted a thing
> 
>  
> 
> And that’s how this fic came about. Steve and Peggy work at the SSR (Steve is still Captain America - the only difference is that he’s still alive) and Bucky and Angie work at the L&L Automat (the only difference is that Bucky’s alive too).
> 
> AKA: what happened when Steve and Bucky didn’t die in the war. And, of course, vintage gayness ensues.

On D-Day, the streets were stocked full of waving newspapers, couples kissing, soldiers throwing hats, children shouting in celebration. The Howling Commandos were avoiding the crazy mess (they had enough press time as is) and hiding away in a bar, glasses raised and hands clapping shoulders in elated celebration while Dernier puffed on his harmonica and Falsworth struck up a terrible tune along with him. 

In their instinctive habit, Rogers and Barnes had snuck off to the back room, just the two of them at a bar again, perfect symmetry to the way this whole thing started. And just like after Azzano, Bucky nudged Steve's shoulder and leaned over in his space with a knowing look, 

"Told you it wouldn't be the jaws of death." He raised an eyebrow and Steve shook his head in amazement with a reluctant, far off smile. 

"Came pretty close a few times. Like the submarine thing...or the train?" A shudder went through them both at the memory and Bucky rubbed his left shoulder subconsciously. 

The mission capturing Zola had almost ended in a nightmare. He'd been knocked out of the train, hanging by just a metal bar - that suddenly peeled back from the train wall and snapped. Steve had lunged for him, hand closing tight around Bucky's wrist, but the sudden jolt had ripped his shoulder out of socket and snapped a piece of his humerus in the process. The medics had wrapped his left arm and shoulder up, so theory was it healed properly, but it still ached a little sometimes. But gotta look at the bright side, at least he still had an arm. 

"Ugh, don't remind me," Bucky complained, nudging Steve with his foot this time. "But what's one more notch in the belt, right? At least all the fighting's in the past now. Well," he paused, giving Steve a side glance. "All the official fighting anyways." 

A warm hand shoved him playfully, making an amused Bucky rock sideways on his stool with its strength. "C'mon, Buck. You know I can't afford to get into alley scraps anymore." 

"No, it's the other guy that can't afford it," he pointed out, only to get an eyeroll in return. 

The moment was interrupted by two frothing pints slammed down on the bar between them, two thick arms slung over both their shoulders and ducking them together, the bellowing voice that accompanied the bowler hat entering just as loud. 

"Well boys, we did it. We really managed to pull this thing off and I gotta say, Cap," Dugan leaned further forward between them, turning his face to look Steve right in the eye. "The hell are they gonna do with you now?" 

"Hell if I know," Steve laughed, shoving Dum-Dum back by the shoulder and eliciting a chorus of cheery, loud laughter behind them. Bucky leaned into the empty space again, close enough to see the flecks in Steve's eyes as he blinked up at him and smiled innocently. 

"Whatever it is, you're keeping the outfit, right?" 

 

 

Needless to say, 

The SSR had different ideas of appropriate dress code than Bucky Barnes. 

"I'm not helpless, you know." Steve glanced over Bucky's shoulder at the mirror, triple checking the gelled swoop of his hair. Bucky raised his eyebrows and slipped the bottom half of the tie through its loop. 

"No, but I've been doing your tie for you since you were old enough to wear one." He tightened the knot, sliding it up to the collar of Steve's crisp button-down and checking for looseness with his finger against Steve's heated throat. "Still think it's a shame the SSR won't let you wear the stars'n'stripes." 

"Buck, you sure you don't want to--"

"Steve, I told you already. Fieldwork and spies ain't for me. I'd piss off the President in the first week, you know that." He brushed invisible dirt off Steve's shoulders, ignoring the worried crease between the dark blonde eyebrows. "And I'd go outta my mind sitting at some desk all day." 

"But it's still a good job. The papers said a lot of vets can’t find work." 

Bucky smoothed down the front of Steve's suit, patting him on the arm as he led him to the door. "I’ll find something. Working with my hands is what I'm good at." He opened the door for Steve and ushered him into the hallway, leaning against the doorframe with a smile. "Besides. One of us has gotta keep up some semblance of normal. Can't have the whole world suspecting we're spies." 

Steve rolled his eyes, but there was an affectionate smile on his face as he gave a little wave goodbye and started for the stairs. 

Bucky watched him go, that familiar pang in his chest he got every time Steve walked away from him. It was pointless now, though. Steve wasn't diving into some battle, wasn't gonna come home bloody and banged up for once. 

Speaking of home...Bucky toed the door shut behind him and paused in the entryway of their new apartment. Well, entryway/living room/kitchen. The benefits of New York. 

He drew back the curtains on the far wall, busy city streets opening up below and a ridiculous flood of light filling the room. This was nothing like Brooklyn. It'd be a lie to say he didn't miss the dark and dirt a little, but he really couldn't complain about having an apartment big enough for the two of them. And it was within walking distance of the New York SSR building, which was the important part. Steve's new job. 

Bucky ran a tired hand through his hair and turned back to survey the two rooms. Three years ago he'd never have imagined them living in a place like this. Then again, he also hadn't imagined Steve being turned into a superhuman and working for the government for a living but hey, who was he to complain? It meant stitching up a lot less gashes on cheekbones. (Hopefully.)

 

 

With one more glance in the hall mirror downstairs, Steve pushed open the doors of their new apartment building and breathed in the bright, New York street air. He hadn’t gotten the chance to spend much time in his home state since the serum, so the last time he’d walked down these streets - or the dirtier, Brooklyn version of these streets - his lungs had been complaining too much to let him suck in the atmosphere.

But as much as he’d changed overseas, New York was basically the same. There was a general confusion in the streets, people fumbling to adjust to post-war life, coming back to those they’d left behind, adjusting to the loss of those who weren’t coming back at all. The camaraderie in the country that had formed during the war though...that hadn’t quite faded yet. Steve hoped it never would. 

Another camaraderie from the war he was hoping wouldn’t fade anytime soon was the friendship he’d formed with Agent Peggy Carter. It was half the reason he was working at the SSR now, knowing that she’d be there as his coworker. 

Things with Agent Carter were still a little...confusing? Well, actually, the most confusing part was how simple it all was. Sure, he had a bit of a crush on her, and maybe she did on him, but the mutual respect and friendship between them was the most important thing right now. 

During the war, he’d depended on her for battle strategy, moral support, somebody to make proud and fight for. He’d never kissed her or anything...there’d never really been a time to. Or a reason. The most dangerous epic moment they'd been in together was when he’d jumped onto Schmidt’s plane from Colonel Phillips’ racing car. But that hadn't been a prime moment to start anything, because Bucky’d jumped the gap first and reached out a hand, helping him jump aboard too while they waved like dorks at Peggy in the backseat. 

She’d laughed at them, not too concerned for the mission because when there were two people to take down Red Skull? All Steve’d had to do was distract Schmidt while Bucky snuck into the shadows and set up the perfect sniper shot. He’d knocked the tesseract out of it’s casing, Schmidt had grabbed it, then he’d gone up into space with this flash of light that Bucky raved about being “straight out of a damn comic book, Stevie, that was so fuckin’ cool,” the entire time they were strapping on their parachutes. 

Peggy chatted over the intercom with them while Howard rerouted the plane to land it in the arctic. Then Bucky and Steve locked arms and jumped out of the side of the plane like that summer they jumped into the East River off the docks. 

So no, he hadn’t had the chance to kiss her during the war. After it was all over though, and with plenty of poking and elbowing from Bucky, he’d asked her out for a drink. 

She’d replied that Erskine’s serum wouldn’t let him get drunk. Bucky’d laughed - a lot - and Steve had blushed, fumbling a request for a dance instead. So they’d gone to the Stork Club and had a lovely night that ended with Peggy leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. And that was kind of that. 

They were really good friends more than anything. She was the first girl Steve could talk to, the first one to look at him twice when he was smaller. So he was glad as hell they were working together at the SSR, that they were still friends.

But since they’d be co workers now, and the war was over, there wasn’t really a point in trying to start something. No one was dying anytime soon, and it wasn’t like settling down was a current life goal. 

Peggy wasn’t looking to get married anytime soon and to be honest, neither was he. The war was over and the whole country was in transition, now was not the time to start looking for life-long partners and relationships. 

So, they were friends, and if Steve blushed a little sometimes and Peggy shook her head with an affectionate smile, that’s just the way they were. 

Thankfully, she was waiting for him at the corner outside the grand white SSR building. He'd been in the SSR back rooms before to fill out paperwork, and yesterday to set up his desk, but today was his first official day and it was nice to have a familiar face walk through the door with him. 

"You ready to take on the most challenging thing since the German straits?" Peggy asked cheerfully, letting him open the door to the phone room for her. 

"It can't be _that_ bad,” Steve teased, only half-kidding, making careful note of the woman at the end that Peggy gave a bright smile to. 

“Morning Rose. And yes, Steve.” The elevator doors slid open and she beckoned him inside. “It’s that bad.” 

 

Turned out that they didn’t have to be on the European front for Peggy Carter to be consistently, immeasurably right. 

Everyone had been called into the briefing room, an important series of mission targets to discuss. The moment the alarm had sounded, Chief Duley had stalked out of his office, pompous and rude as he blew past Peggy and told her to cover phones. 

Steve had stood up from his desk, hackles raised and ready to give the head chief a piece of his mind when Peggy had picked up her desk phone with a calmly murderess look on her face, requesting a polite, "Rose, forward all calls to the briefing room." 

Then she'd snapped the phone in its receiver, raising her eyebrows in challenge as she blew past Duley with a deadly grace and a sweetly smug, "Shall we?" 

Steve just stood at his desk for a moment, blinking and wondering when he was going to stop being one-upped by Peggy Carter. 

Now they'd all taken seats at the long table, Steve and Peggy next to each other at the far end, watching a black and white slideshow and listening to Chief Duley rant. Apparently the German scientists that had been recruited for space-ship building had given up the names of other German scientists who were planning something much more sinister overseas. 

Chief Duley clicked through the crackling slideshow of faces, talking over the whir of the projector. “We haven’t got much intel on the project, just that the Germans and the Russians are making it a collab. And from the last transcript we got it appears this man...” 

The screen flipped to show a picture of an ugly man in glasses, staring down the screen with that all too familiar glare. “...is the project head. His name is Doctor Ar--”

“Doctor Arnim Zola. He’s a Swiss scientist and weapons manufacturer. He’s spent a lot of time researching pain and torture techniques on American POW’s,” Steve filled in, interrupting Duley and looking around the room with the same polite authoritative suggestion he had during the war. 

“And you know this how?” Duley asked, eyebrows raised and chin lowered in an unimpressed glance. 

“My Sergeant was tortured by him in Hydra's Azzano base. It was my squad that captured him in ‘45. Although we weren’t the ones who lost him.” Steve grimaced, internally shivering at the dead stare from the black and white flickering photo. There weren’t a lot of people he hated as much as Arnim Zola. 

A blond agent in suspenders - Thompson, Steve was pretty sure - scoffed at Steve’s testimony, drumming his fingers lazily on the table and giving Steve the most condescending, skeptical look he’d seen in a long time. 

“And what would _you_ know?” The sharp eyes turned to Duley, tilting his head towards Steve as he continued in the unimpressed tone. “We’re going to go on the word of a science experiment showgirl who parades around with a flag on his chest?”

Before Steve could think of something to say in response - it’d been awhile since he’d had someone talk to him that way - another man at the table leaned forward, glaring at Agent Thompson as he shot back a reply.

“Captain Rogers saved thousands of US soldiers’ lives. He single-handedly stopped the Nazi’s rogue science division--”

Peggy leaned over from her seat next to him, whispering an amused correction in his ear. “Double-handedly.” 

He almost smiled at that. Peggy was always making side remarks about Bucky, although he had no idea why. At least they didn’t hate each other; Steve couldn’t complain. 

Truthfully, Bucky’d hated her at first, glaring her down like the red dress she wore was personally offensive. Steve’d pestered him about it - c’mon Buck, she’s smart as a whip, sassy as hell, you’d _love_ her - until Bucky’d finally thrown up his hands and confessed. 

“How can I approve of some girl who only likes you cause you’re six foot two and wear a uniform?” 

“Buck, I knew Peggy before the operation. First girl I could talk to. Hell, I think she liked me before the operation. She even tried to stop them halfway through because she thought I was hurt.” 

“...oh.” 

And so that had been the last of the glares; and the next time they’d seen each other Bucky’d looked her up and down with open appreciation and she’d punched him in the bicep hard enough to make him hiss and grab his arm in offense. 

He warmed up to her plenty after that. 

(Even if he still shot her wary looks when he thought no one was looking.) And he teased the hell out of the both of them, but what could you do? It was Bucky.

Steve checked back into the Captain Rogers vs. Captain America argument just as Chief Duley held up his hands with a pacifying “Alright, alright, ladies. If you wanna argue you can take it up outside my work schedule. In the meantime, I think we all have some research to do. Including you, Captain Rogers. I want a report on my desk in an hour with every word of information you have about this guy.”

With that Duley shut off the projector and swung out of the room dramatically, leaving half the agents at the table to sigh in either relief or annoyance at the new project. 

He stood up the same time Peggy did, pushing her chair in for her as she scooped up their files with an amused smile, British accent obvious even through the teasing lilt of her words.

“Who’d have imagined, Steve Rogers being ridiculoued.” She quirked an eyebrow, mischievous smile on the corner of her mouth. Steve rolled his eyes at her, starting for the door.

“Right, like that’s not what I spent the first 24 years of my life doing.” He paused at the doorway, arriving the same time as the man who’d defended him to Thompson. Steve stuck out his hand, “Agent…”

“Sousa,” the man supplied, shifting his weight on his crutch to shake Steve’s hand. “I’m sorry Thompson’s such a jerk, I’m sure he’s just jealous--”

“Agent Sousa. Thank you, for sticking up for me. I appreciate it, really. But I can handle anything they throw at me, I’m sure it’s all better than the tomatoes I got for some of my overseas shows.”

Sousa cracked a smile, shifting his weight again. “Well, it’s a pleasure to be working with you, Captain.” 

“You can call me Steve. And the same for you, Agent Sousa.” 

He nodded, a little shy as he shot a smile over Steve’s shoulder at Peggy. “I’ll see you around, Carter.”

She gave him a smile of her own and as soon as he was gone Steve turned over his shoulder, tipping his head towards Sousa, eyebrows raised and pinning Peggy with a look that said _we are so talking about this._ She rolled her eyes at him but grabbed her bag, tilting her head towards the door. 

“Want to write that report over the best pie in New York?”

 

The other great thing about being friends with Peggy Carter? She knew everybody and everything. She’d been working for this unit of the SSR a month and a half longer than Steve, having come to work here almost directly after the war ended. But Steve and the Howling Commandos had been dragged to DC for one last round of mini victory tours and films. 

Which meant going on stage for at least ten more public speeches in red white and blue while Bucky snickered at him from backstage and flirted with all the USO girls and kept asking Steve why the hell he hadn’t drawn naked pictures of these fine young ladies while he was on tour. 

Steve didn’t grace that with an answer, just dragged Bucky back to their hotel room and coerced him into letting Steve take first shower. 

Now that they were back in New York, everything was starting to settle back into normal. Although Steve had to admit it was strange to leave for work this morning with Bucky waving from the doorway instead of the opposite. For once, Bucky was the one at home, searching through the papers for a job while Steve brought home the bread for their lifelong friendship. 

And if the pie here was as good as Peggy said, he may have to buy a piece to go and bring it back to Buck - god knows he hated being cooped up and waiting. Pie would be just the thing to cheer him up. 

The L & L Automat was within walking distance of the SSR _and_ his apartment with Bucky, so Steve already liked it before Peggy pushed through the revolving door at the front. 

The inside was really well designed, a row of mint green booths tucked against a low partition separating the rest of the restaurant from the wall displaying _Pastries Beverages Sandwiches_ in that signature diner font. There was a row of tables too, between the booths and the bar counter, where a few patrons were sitting with milkshakes. 

Peggy led him over to a booth and slid him a menu to study while she craned her neck to peer into the back kitchen room. She’d told him on the way over that one of the sweetest people she knew worked here, a lovely waitress that Steve was going to love. 

He was still studying the menu when a shadow landed on the table, an apron in his peripherals as the polite voice of their server interrupted his internal debate over sandwich types.

“Can I get anything special for the big guy over here?” The shade of a Brooklyn drawl in that tone was unmistakable and Steve looked up from his menu in surprise.

“Bucky!” So much for that condolences pie. Steve turned in his seat, looking Bucky up and down, barely able to keep a straight face at the uniform. Buck was in a light blue shirt with a bright yellow collar and yellow stripes on the sleeves, a matching blue apron with yellow lining tied around his waist, blue pants, and a tiny blue and yellow striped cap on his head, his hair slicked in a sugar-sweet curl over his forehead. 

For lack of anything better to say, because Bucky was _adorable_ , Steve clapped his hands and exclaimed, “You found a job!” 

With a little smile tucked in one corner of his mouth Bucky gave Steve a two-fingered salute and turned a cheeky wink on Peggy. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, Steve turned to her too, his eyebrows high enough to catch clouds.

“Is this the ‘lovely waitress’ you were talking about?” How the hell had Peggy known before him?

And that’s when a fourth person joined the group, a pretty brunette clicking her heels right up to the edge of their table - waitress outfit to match Bucky’s all the way up to the stiff little hat - as she flipped a page on the blue notebook in her hand and gave him a blinding, genuine smile. 

“Nope, Mister, that’s me. Hey English, it’s good to hear _somebody_ think I’m lovely.” Her smile somehow got even wider as she looked at Peggy, then she turned back to him and stuck out a hand over the booth table. “Angie Martinelli. You know Bucky here?”

She cocked her head in Bucky’s direction as Steve shook her hand, impressed by the firm grip, and opened his mouth to explain.

“Oh no, never met him,” Bucky insisted innocently, so Steve shoved his hip - closest thing he could reach - and rolled his eyes.

“We’ve been best friends since we were four,” he explained patiently to Peggy’s waitress friend - Angie - while Bucky bit down on a giggle. 

“Well golly gee, would ya look at that.” She looked between all three of them in wonder and knocked a playful hand against Bucky’s shoulder. “This rowdy kid knows Peggy’s boyfriend.” 

“Oh no, no. we aren’t--uh,” both Steve and Peggy scrambled, then they paused and looked at each other and Steve shut his mouth, deciding to let Peggy handle it because it was her friend after all. 

“We aren’t dating,” Peggy assured her. Bucky was looking between them with amused eyes and Angie just shrugged cheerily. 

“Alrighty. So--what can i get the just-friends, then?”

“Coworkers,” Bucky helpfully suggested, one arm over his chest and the other waving around in the air. “Besties. Comrades-in-arms. Went-dancin’-once Friends. Kissed-on-the-cheek-once Friends. First-girl-I-could-talk-to-without-gettin’-the-cold-shoulder Friends.”

Peggy rolled her eyes at him and Bucky popped his gum with a grin. “Thank you for that, Sergeant Barnes.” 

Angie’s face lit up and she spun to him, her voice almost exaggeratedly surprised. “You were a Sergeant?” 

“Of the 107th,” Bucky confirmed, fingers wrapping over Steve’s shoulder as he shook him a little. “And Rogers’ over here was my Captain.” 

“Captain Rogers,” Angie announced, writing the name across the top of her ordering notepad. Then she froze, looking up, her eyes widening as her mouth popped open. “Wait….wait, you’re Captain America! Peg, you never told me you knew Captain America!” 

Steve was too busy focusing on not reacting to the warm hand on his shoulder to respond, but thankfully Peggy decided to take the question upon herself. 

“He came to work at the phone company with me, but we met when I was on a...trip overseas.”

“Captain America workin’ at a phone company? Who’d’ve thunk!” Angie put one hand on her hip, shaking her head with that never-ending smile. “Funny thing about the war, huh? Alrighty, what can I get you, Star Spangled Man?”

The diner all turned to them as a sudden loud laugh overpowered the swing music pouring out of the turntable in the back. Bucky tipped his head back and laughed heartily all the way to the diner register. Steve’s eyes followed him, thankful as hell that Bucky hadn’t turned around since the outburst and stride back to work, because he definitely couldn’t keep the affectionate smile off his mouth this time. 

 

~*~*~*~

 

Unfortunately the highlight of his work day ended abruptly less than an hour later as Steve and Peggy stood, leaving an annoyingly generous tip that Bucky rolled his eyes at when he cleared the table later. 

But the greatest part - besides the shocked look on his face seeing Bucky as his waiter - was on Steve's way out, when he stopped by the counter to slide a folded napkin Bucky's way before hurrying after Peggy for the door. He paused and gave a little adorable wave that Bucky couldn't help but laugh at, then the revolving doors were spinning shut behind him. 

"Mercy me, isn't _he_ a looker," Angie sighed, both of them leaning on the counter to stare at the doors slowly revolving on empty air. 

"God, I know," Bucky agreed, propping his chin in his hand with a dreamy look. 

Then Angie's eyes grew wide with surprise, hair bouncing as she whirled her head to look at him and Bucky splashed back into reality, quickly straightening up - and sliding the mystery folded napkin into his apron - to correct himself, clarify and backpedal before he fumbled up his great new job over the dumbest of slips. 

"All the girls overseas used to fawn like hell over him," Bucky shook his head like it was the worst disaster on the planet and the shock in Angie's fade slipped away, replaced with a humming sound of agreement. But because he had to lay this on thick, really keep it up, Bucky resumed his earlier chin-in-hands position, mouth turned down in a pout this time. "I was practically invisible."

It wasn't a lie because he had felt invisible - just not to the girls, to the guy the girls were suddenly hookin' on. 

But the personal pity party and exaggerated pout worked wonders, as always, because Angie snorted, that increasingly familiar beam on her pretty face as she nudged him. 

"You're not so bad yourself, Sergeant." Her mouth curved up wide and honest as she said it and Bucky couldn't help but smile back, grabbing the next tray the cook slid over the partition and tipping an imaginary sailor hat to Angie with his free hand. 

"Why thank you, Ms. Martinelli." He gave her a half-hearted bow to finish the look and she beamed again, rolling her eyes and shoving his shoulder in juxtaposition. 

"Oh, stop it. Just go on, get out there and impress the ladies into leavin' tips." She shooed him with a hand motion and Bucky laughed, her blatant words and unbreakable attitude quickly sunning her up to add to his list of favorite people. 

By the time he got back to the counter empty-handed, Angie was thankfully clearing tables, so she couldn't peer over his shoulder as he headed to the window for better light. He tugged Steve's folded napkin out of his pocket, heart in his throat as he flipped it open. 

It was a drawing, a sketch done in pen of Bucky in his new waiter uniform, leaning over the counter with a wide smile and a bright reflection in his eyes, little hat tipped sideways on his head. 

The first thing he did was straighten the hat - it had been on crooked and as much as he was for breaking the norm, it was his first day and he wasn't stupid - and then he allowed himself a few seconds more to take in the drawing, mouth quirking up in the corner. 

Steve had been looking at him, studying him enough to draw his uniform and posture to a tee and really, after all this time that shouldn't make Bucky blush anymore except it really, really did. 

Then a customer was calling out for Angie and Bucky tucked the napkin back in his apron pocket, snatching up a spare notebook off the counter and hurrying to the asshole on the left so Martinelli didn't have to deal with his wrath. 

 

 

The archive he'd been sent to was on the second floor, so when he pressed the elevator button and stood in parade rest waiting on the increasing lit dots under floors, he was surprised to see it was coming from even lower than the archives. Which meant somebody from the lab in the basement was coming up - he might get the chance to introduce himself to the scientists. 

When the elevator doors slid open with a high pitched chime, the last person he was expecting to see stared warily back at him, a moment’s pause before Steve’s brain kicked on. He wasn’t going to refuse to get in just because the little space was occupied by the jerk of a blonde agent who'd mouthed him off to Duley. 

Steve stepped into the elevator and turned as the door slid shut, shoulder to shoulder as they both faced forward. 

"Agent Thompson," he greeted shortly, eyes straight ahead. 

"Rogers." He got in reply, more spat than spoken. 

It'd be asking for trouble to correct him with the _Captain_ , so Steve refrained and focused on keeping his hands relaxed at his sides instead of tightening into fists. 

The lift only dinged past one floor before Thompson sighed dramatically, like sharing an elevator with Steve was the worst thing he’d had to do in _years_ and really, for somebody who apparently hated how much time Steve’d spent on the stage, Agent Thompson was a _drama_ queen. 

He tipped his head back exasperatedly and Steve was about to say something along the lines of _rude much_ when the sharp blue-gray eyes turned to him, vaguely disgusted twist of his mouth as he looked Steve over. 

"What are you doing here?” He finally asked, sounding oh so very tired and bored. “Isn't there some newspaper who wants your picture in tights?"

Great. This again. Steve sucked in a breath, smoothing his fingers over the swoop of his hair, self-consciously thinking for a moment of the floppy, unruly blond bangs he’d had for years. Thompson just looked so… _sharp_. Classy, all hard angles and pressed gray suit, blonde hair two shades lighter than Steve’s and ten times neater. 

And Steve was over here, still trying to get used to wearing suspenders again, now that the smallest size wasn’t three times too big for his shoulders. 

"Look. I’m not looking for trouble." _For once,_ he added in his head, unable to miss the way Thompson straightened up at the word, basically Steve’s height in his clicking heeled work shoes. It was weird to have someone at his height, so used to either being irrationally smaller or significantly taller. Maybe that’s what was throwing Steve so off his game.

"And you're not gonna find any.” Thompson raised his eyebrows, tone all kinds of patronizing before he turned back to the elevator doors with a smug look. “But you're not gonna see any action either, if I have anything to say about it.” 

And there went his calm. Steve bristled at the implication, because he knew exactly how much swing Thompson had in this office and it was way more than he did. He had a feeling it wasn’t a bluff either - Thompson honestly disliked him enough to go out of his way to make sure Steve felt useless. Make sure he _was_ useless. 

There was nothing worse than being useless. He couldn’t imagine just being a desk worker for the rest of his career…

The elevator dinged again as they passed another floor and this had to be the _slowest_ elevator in the world. At least it gave him time for a rebuttal. Because if he went through with the threat?

"Look, Thompson," Steve started, wishing he knew the agent’s first name so he could’ve used that instead. Made it personal, because that was the whole point of this, wasn’t it? "You're a soldier, right?" 

"Navy Cross in Okinawa. Pretty sure I’m a soldier." Thompson scoffed at him and Steve nodded patiently, glancing over from his half of the elevator to evaluate reactions as he relayed his point carefully.

"And so am I. I'm not saying everything the papers write is true - it's not, because they blew me up into some...glorified superhero.” Steve grimaced, thinking of all those front covers with him pointing at the camera, how different that was from the truth. “But I still fought on those fronts, same as you. I’ve watched men die, I've had to kill men with my bare hands. I'm not saying we're the same - but I'm not any less than you just because people know my name."

Thompson leaned back on his heels, still looking at the doors as he pursed his lips thoughtfully. Or maybe in the exaggerated thoughtfulness of an asshole, Steve wasn’t ruling that one out. 

Another chiming ding and the elevator slowed to a stop, doors sliding open as Thompson turned to him, pompously straightening the lapels his suit as he grazed his eyes up and down Steve’s form in open mockery. "We'll see about that. I'll believe it when you actually prove yourself.” 

He stepped out of the elevator, walking backwards a few steps to deliver his last line with a wide, condescending smile. “Until then, you might as well be Carter. Pretty face to fill a space." 

Steve blinked and Thompson spun on a heel, stalking down the hallway towards the SSR main room and the elevator doors started to slide shut on him before Steve managed to snap out of it, jumping into the hallway right before he got stuck in the small space. 

Okay, so Thompson was gonna be a problem. A _big_ problem. And Steve was pretty sure that was the first time he’d been accused of having a _pretty face_. Like it was an insult. Who knows, maybe to Agent Thompson it was. 

He shook his head, feeling strangely confused and a little inadequate for the first time since he’d been shoved in a box and turned into a supersoldier. Peggy had been totally right about this job being the hardest thing since the German straits. 

And Bucky’d been totally right about the SSR being the last place _he_ should be. Buck would've pissed off every single agent by now; Steve was lucky he only had one who hated him. Which was something he probably shouldn’t bring home, speaking of Bucky. Telling Buck about Thompson and his issues wouldn’t do any good. He’d fix it on his own, or he’d deal with it. Either way, this was - for once - a battle that was finally all _his_ to fight. 

 

 

They were twenty minutes from close when the revolving doors swung open again, the unmistakable sound of clicking heels on the tile floors announcing Peggy's arrival a half-second before Angie's double-starlight-mode suddenly switched on. 

Bucky watched her from the corner of his eye, picking up the way her entire posture changed, straightening up as that brilliant light clicked on behind her usual cheeriness, blindingly sweet as she grabbed a pot of coffee, watching Peggy cross the diner to their bar. Interesting. Angie sure did like Peg. 

“You want me to--” Bucky started, turning towards the bubbling waitress, but he was cut off by a soft, thin hand suddenly pushing him towards the door, snatching up his ordering pad and tossing it on the counter. 

“Oh I got it from here, Bucky. You're totally great though.” Angie assured him, nodding enthusiastically as she pushed his shoulders. “I’ll close up tonight and see you bright n early tomorrow mornin’ at seven!”

Bucky got practically shoved out the door at that point and he huffed an amused laugh, watching through the window as Angie bounded back to the counter, leaning over it with that joyous look to talk to Peggy. And, surprisingly, Peggy looked nearly as happy to see her. 

He hummed to himself and untied his apron, draping it over his arm before starting back to his new apartment under the dim-lit city lights. 

“So, Angie, how is working with James?” Peggy lifted her mug to her lips, raising her eyebrows over the porcelain as Angie sat down the coffee pot, cocking her head in confusion.

“Who's James?” Peggy tilted her head towards the door and Angie followed her gaze, mouth popping open as she caught on. “Oh, Bucky?” 

Peggy swallowed her mouthful of coffee, the slight sweetness mixed in with the warmth exactly what she needed after that crazy day at work. Then she nodded, sitting her mug down on the counter and running her finger around the rim.

“Yes, sorry. His full name is, ah, James Buchanan.” 

“Like the president?” Angie shot an amazed look at the revolving doors, but the space was long since empty. Then she shook her head, seeming to remember Peggy’s question as she grabbed a cloth from behind the counter and started wiping down the shiny surface in long strokes. “He's a real sweetheart. Flirts with all the womenfolk, but definitely gets down to scrubbin’ things if he needs to. Real hard worker, those are hard to find these days.”

Peggy cocked an eyebrow, looking down at the counter as she stirred her coffee for something to do with her hands. “Sounds like he's got a certain woman-folk interested.”

James Barnes had quite the reputation, so really it shouldn’t be all that surprising that Angie was fawning over him too. After all, he wasn’t just charm and looks, he was fairly bright, treated women right too. Although he’d probably gotten that trait from Steve...it worked though, nearly everyone who met the Brooklyn sniper fell for his sideways smile. 

That didn’t explain why it felt like some kind of betrayal, Angie liking him. Really, she should be happy for Ang, behind the facade he was a pretty decent fellow. So then why did the idea of Angie & Bucky make her mouth tighten in distaste? 

It took a few seconds for Angie to catch her drift, suddenly stilling her cloth and looking up at Peggy with wide eyes.

“Me? Oh no, honey.” She shook her head with that smile that said Peggy was ~~adorably~~ ridiculous. Then she leaned forward, elbow propped on the counter and long, slender finger pointing at the door. “Brunette may be my type, but not that one, that's for sure.”

The relieved breath that escaped Peggy’s mouth was purely for the sake of Angie’s happiness, that was all. She didn’t know Angie had a type though, brunnette? That was interesting, certainly a conversation to expand upon another time. 

Angie grabbed the refill pot, topping off Peggy’s coffee with a hand on her hip and that bubbly curiosity in her eyes. “So tell me what it's like working with Captain America. I can't believe you never told me you'd met him!”

Just another thing to hate about the SSR, but Peggy smiled anyways, all of the misogynistic bullshit tended to take a back burner when Angie was so damn optimistic all the time.  
“Steve's actually got quite a lot more to him than the suit. Including a mouth that gets him in a lotta trouble.” 

“What kinda trouble can you get into at the phone company?” Angie laughed, and Peggy lifted an eyebrow, taking another sip of her coffee.

“You'd be surprised.”

Angie shook her head, pointing a dancing finger her way. “You always manage to surprise me, English.” With a quick flick of her skirt she swept into the kitchen, leaning over the partition to finish her train of thought. “I'm closin’ up shop here in ten, you wanna walk back to the Griffith together?”

She couldn’t help the nod, the warm feeling settling in her stomach at the hopeful look on Angie’s face. “Wouldn't miss it.” 

She got another smile, almost shy this time, then it was back to staring into her coffee and fighting to keep her own shy smile of her face.

 

 

He hadn't come home from work to Steve draped in some ridiculous pose over the couch for three years. And as much had changed in that time? 

Steve sprawled on plush couch cushions, dark blonde head popping up as he swung open the apartment door felt the exact same as it had back then. 

Not counting that three years ago he took up a single cushion and now the couch was almost too small, feet kicked up on one armrest and head pillowed on the other. And that small factor that three years ago he'd been delicately pretty instead of looking like a model out of a dirty magazine, suspenders hanging off his hips and tie loosened, files in his lap and feet crossed at the ankles. 

But, because he'd been handling shit like this since they were teens, Bucky didn't even blush when the blue eyes lit on his, little smile in the corner of that pretty mouth. 

"Hey, workin' boy. You're home late." 

Bucky toed off shoes, holding onto the wall for support so he didn't jump around like a moron. Aka Steve. "Actually this is early - diner doesn't close for another fifteen, but Angie said she'd take care of it." 

"I like her. Angie? She seems sweet." Steve opened up a file and Bucky rolled his eyes, unbuttoning his blue and yellow overshirt and shouldering it off to hang on the hook by the door. 

"Nah, you just like her cause she called you the Star Spangled Man." 

Steve snorted and turned back to his files, shuffling paper while Bucky took off his hat, leaving an array of blue and yellow behind him as he crossed the floor to Steve's couch. It was a little chilly in only a white tank top and pants but he'd seen enough pale blue today to drive him mad. 

"Whatcha workin' on?" Bucky propped on the armrest next to Steve's head to peer over his shoulder at the mysterious files. 

"Classified government documents," Steve answered stubbornly and he could practically _see_ the blue and white flowing alongside the red blood in his veins. 

Bucky hummed nonchalantly, rubbing his thumb against the back of Steve's neck to ease out the tension. The files were too far away to read in tiny print, not without squinting and trying hard. He could grab them, wrestle the documents away from Steve to read for himself. But that wasn't the point. Even if they were clear as day, an inch from his face, Bucky wouldn't just take them. 

Instead he waited. Steve may be stubborn, but everybody has a weak spot. Lucky for him, Steve's weak spot was a certain 6' foot military Sergeant who gave really good neck massages. 

Less than two minutes after he'd mentioned them and Steve finally deflated, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose as he handed Bucky the file folder over his shoulder. 

"Fine, fine." Called it. Steve stood up and stretched and Bucky managed to take the files without gloating, flopping sideways onto the empty spot on the couch to spread out the papers. 

Steve leaned over the back of the couch, watching Bucky look through his work. "The SSR is looking into a collaboration project between the Germans and the Russians that's grabbing a lot of international attention. And guess who's running it." 

He reached over Bucky's shoulder to flip one of the pages, revealing a full-sized black and white printout of the one face Bucky despised most in the world. 

"I hate that bastard," Bucky muttered. 

One of Steve's hands found his way into Bucky's hair, ruffling it slightly as his palm pressed warm and heavy against Bucky's skull, fingers curling and scritching his scalp roughly. 

"Yeah, me too," he responded, low and gravelly, a beat or two of solid, grounding warmth that made Bucky have to fight to keep his eyes open. Then the comfort of that hand was gone, slipping off slowly, and Bucky let out the breath he'd been holding. 

"Well. At least if you guys snag him, no need to worry anymore, right?" He tilted his head up, looking at the upside down man leaning over the back of the couch and gave Steve his best bullshit smile. 

He was pretty sure Steve didn't buy it. 

Especially when Bucky woke up panting, soaked in sweat and gripping his bedsheets tight in shaking hands. 

He pressed a hand over his eyes, taking in a ragged breath as quietly as he could, praying he hadn't woken Steve. 

Then a cool glass of water was being pressed into his free hand and Bucky sighed, running distressed fingers through his hair and taking the glass. 

"Zola?" Steve confirmed quietly and Bucky nodded, pressing the waterglass to his lips and barely managing to keep it from spilling with the way his hands were shaking. Thankfully Steve didn't reach out to steady it, just carefully sat down on the edge of his bed, warm hip pressed to Bucky's knee. The water felt like heaven going down, smooth and cool and everything he hadn't had after his nightmares during the war. 

He'd had a lot of nightmares in army tents too. Some were as simple as memories of his time at Azzano, being tortured by those wicked hands. Others were terrifyingly brilliant creations of blood and fire and monsters, his worst fears staring back at him through the crosshairs of a sniper scope. Steve was always there, solid and safe, when he woke up and sometimes it felt like that was the only reason he _did_ wake up. 

"Good thing I'm just a diner hop, huh?" Bucky huffed a sadistic laugh, tipping his head against the wall and looking at Steve with tired eyes. "SSR would get a kick outta my psych eval."

Steve pressed his lips together, looking away with a pained expression. "You're never 'just' an anything, Buck."

He was not in the mood to have this conversation five minutes after waking up from torture chamber dreams. 

So he glanced up under his lashes, coyly widening his eyes into that bullshit innocent look, voice an octave higher and over-exaggerated enough to get punched for. “You really think so, Star Spangled Man?” 

"Shut up," Steve's mouth opened indignantly, then he was shoving Bucky sideways and it was his biggest challenge of the past twenty-four hours trying to keep the water glass from dumping over his sheets while he laughed at Steve's face and dodged a second shove. 

And retaliation was sweet, fingers dipped in the top of the water glass and flicked at Steve's face, making him sputter and blink, hand darting to grab Bucky's wrist before he could do it again. 

"You're a menace," Steve told him and Bucky laughed and shoved the glass back at Steve, the smile on his face his _thank you for everything_ as he plopped back down on his pillow, rolling towards the wall with a huff. 

"Goodnight, Stevie," he sing-songed, eyes slipping closed as a warm hand pushed the hair out of his face. The bed creaked in protest as Steve stood back up and gosh, could Bucky agree. 

 

~*~*~

 

"Hey Carter!" 

Peggy shoved the file she'd been scanning underneath a pile of authorized ones and looked up with a plastered smile that hopefully didn't appear guilty as hell. 

Oh, thank god. It wasn't Steve. In fact, she still hadn't seen Steve today...

"Daniel," she greeted, sitting up a little straighter. "Is there anything I can help you with?" 

"Actually, Peggy, I was wondering about that friend of yours - Rogers?" He scooted the chair in front of hers closer to the desk with his crutch and sat down, leaning the metal poles on the floor. 

"Steve? Did he do something stupid again?" She moved to stand, already mentally prepping whatever speech she'd need to bail him out of trouble _this_ time, when Sousa lifted his hands, motioning her to calm and sit back down. 

"No, no. Nothing like that. But...again?" 

Peggy smiled, shaking her head. "Yes, he's got a bit of a rebellious streak. What they don't put in the papers - that big rescue mission that catapulted him to international fame? It was explicitly against direct orders." 

"Wow. Yeah, they definitely don't put that in the papers." Sousa shook his head with an amused smile that faded pretty quickly, turning down in confusion. "Which kind of, uh. Leads me to my question. I mean, he seems like a great guy and all, don't get me wrong. But, uh. Why is he... here?"

"Instead of where?" Peggy raised her eyebrows and Sousa furrowed his, apparently not having considered that angle. 

"I don't know. Wherever, uh. Movie stars and war heroes go. Because that isn't exactly the SSR." Daniel leaned on the armrest of the chair, expression in that curious and vaguely concerned questioning mode. Peggy sighed, because she figured this conversation would come up sooner or later. Better now, though. 

"Not usually, no. But this is what he's good at. Battle strategies, leading organizations with his rationality and dedication. Unless you know of any work for ex-movie star _artists,_ I doubt you could drag him out of the game of war." Although he probably wouldn't quit being a soldier for even art. For anything, she'd guess. (Well, besides the obvious, the person he'd quit anything for.)

"He's an artist?" 

"He is." 

"But he doesn't plan to, you know. Settle down? Marry somebody who means a lot to him..."

The only person on this planet Steve cared enough about to spend the rest of his life with was James Barnes and it wasn't like _they_ were ever getting married. Or marrying anyone else, for that matter, as long as the other was around. She'd say it was an unhealthy relationship, how strangely...attached, those two were. Except that James was a better person when Steve was around and Steve smiled when James was, so unhealthy wasn't really the right word. Codependent, more like it. 

"I don't think Steve will be settling down anytime soon, no." She gave Daniel another tight-lipped smile and he shifted awkwardly in his seat, hesitancy written all over his features as he opened his mouth again. 

"So you two aren't..."

"Together? No, Agent Sousa, we are not. Nor will we ever be, I presume. Did you think he was working with the SSR because of _me_?"

Sousa shrugged apologetically, although she really couldn't be that upset with the assumption since it wasn't nearly as bad as the misogynistic bastards who thought she only had a job here because she knew Captain America. It was refreshing, actually, having the opposite assumed for once. 

"Steve is here for himself." She clicked her fingers across her desk once, tilting her eyebrow up as she pondered the next thought aloud. "And probably so he can bring home the bread for once after being the housewife for such a long time." 

"I thought you said he wasn't married?" Sousa settled back in his chair, significantly more relaxed now that they'd gotten the awkward questions out of the way. 

"Oh, he's not. He lives with his best friend, a rascal of a sergeant in the army." Peggy leaned over her desk, lowering her voice just above a whisper. "If you ever want to get Steve talking, ask him about Sergeant Barnes and you'll have your ear talked off a month's worth." 

"Did I hear a Sergeant Barnes in there?" A voice from behind Sousa interrupted and both their heads shot up, looking over as Chief Duley's office door swung shut, Steve striding over with an armful of files and his best poker face on. "Bucky's gonna be elated to hear you're talking about him at work, Peg." 

She shot a knowing look at Sousa, mouthing _see?_ and Daniel tipped his head back in a laugh, grabbing his crutches off the ground and pulling himself up with a nod at Steve. 

"Rogers. Peggy was just telling me about your friend, Sergeant...Barnes?" He furrowed his eyebrows in a very convincing confused look and Peggy had to hide a snicker behind her hand. 

"Oh, don't believe anything she says about him. She's just got a grudge 'cause he was the first badass brunette in my life," Steve dead-panned with a perfectly straight face and Peggy couldn't hold back her laughter then, waving a hand at both of them to shoo as she leaned back in her chair and laughed. 

Men. 

Sousa gave her a smiling nod and clapped a hand on Steve's arm before making his way back to his own desk. Steve scooted the extra chair out of the way to clear the aisle, walking backwards a few steps so he could tilt his head at Sousa and make all sorts of questioning, suggestive faces. 

That's right, Steve seemed to think she had a thing for Daniel. They'd never had the chance to discuss it at the diner because of the very distracting new waiter (and distracting regular waitress) so odds are he was still in a twist about it, even moreso now that he'd caught them gossiping together. 

She just waved him off with a look that promised _later_ and turned back to the files on her desk. She had no idea when the SSR had turned from a government intelligence organization to a bloody rumor mill. 

It wasn't the only place where gossip levels had increased dramatically with the introduction of new employees. 

"Hey Ang," Bucky called from the bar, tossing a rag over his shoulder. "Where the hell did the asshole at table 6 disappear to? Haven't seen him today." 

Angie walked - flounced? pranced? whatever you call the cheery, peppy way she moved - out of the kitchen, smacking him with a backhand to the shoulder. Thankfully it was his right one so he just made a noise and shrunk away. 

"Hey, there's nobody in here! I wouldn't curse in front'a the crowd, you know that." He rubbed his arm melodramatically and Angie shook her head at him. 

"I wouldn't put it past you," she pursed her lips, but the smacking hand came down so Bucky stopped flinching. "Anyway, what were you sayin'? The asshole at 6? You've worked here for three days, how'd you know he's an asshole already?" 

She gave him a curious look and Bucky whipped the towel off his shoulder, snapping it in the air and dropping his voice comically low. 

"Us men, we have this instinctive talent, can pick out assholes for miles. It's what makes us so //obviously// superior to the women!" 

Angie smacked his arm again and Bucky laughed, ducking to the side and shielding himself with the towel. 

"Well I bet your meter is tinglin' every time you look in the mirror, Barnes." She put a hand on her hip and shook her head with a reluctant smile. Bucky peeked out from behind the towel, determined the coast was clear, and draped the thing back over his shoulder. 

"But anyway, he said some snarky thing at breakfast yesterday, while you were in the back? Peggy walked over to him, then suddenly he was leavin' a tip bigger than a day's worth a' salary and just boom, gone. Ain't been back since." 

That was so signature Peggy. As funny as she was, she was also terrifying. Very terrifying. 

"Good riddance to bad rubbish." Bucky swiped the bar counter for lack of anything better to do. They were always short on patrons between breakfast and lunch. 

Lunch was his favorite, cause sometimes Peggy brought Steve in here and if that wasn't a highlight to a busy workday, he didn't know what was. 

"Speakin' of regulars," Bucky leaned his forearms on the counter, bending to prop himself up as he cocked his head at Angie, who was restocking napkins on the other side of the bar. "There are some folks that show up here I've got some much nicer names for... You gotta flame for any a' the customers, Ang?" 

She turned around, eyebrows up and a serious look on her face. "If I held so much as a candle, there's no way I'm tellin' you, Barnes. Your mouth is bigger 'an your head." He made an offended noise and she reached over to pin his cloth useless to the counter. "And that's a pretty impressive feat."

Bucky whipped the cloth out of her reach, flinging it indignantly in the air before tossing it in its bucket behind the counter. 

"Ms. Martinelli, I do believe you've broken my heart. What am I to do? The most beautiful woman I know and she thinks I love none other than myself." He draped a dramatic hand over his forehead and Angie rolled her eyes, wiping her hands on her apron as she grabbed a fresh stack of menus. 

"You're a piece a' work, you know that?" 

Bucky snapped out of the pose, giving her his widest smile. "I sure do, ma'am." 

He grabbed the other half of the menu stack, following her as she started across the diner to place the updated menu in the window. "But seriously, Martinelli, you gotta doll up that pretty for _somebody_. I promise, I ain't gonna tell. I'm a lotta things, but a snitch and a liar ain't one of 'em." 

Angie shot him a skeptical look and Bucky raised two fingers to his temple. "Soldier's honor." 

"Oh, stop it. You men and your uniforms."

"You know who looks kickass in a uniform? Peggy Carter. Man, can that woman rock a tie." 

Angie suddenly spun on him, eyes wide and alarmed. "Who said anythin' about Peggy?" 

"I did," Bucky replied slowly, taking the extra menus from her arms and cocking an eyebrow. "We were talking about attractive people. And you were about to tell me who you liiikeeee..."

All traces of worry gone, Angie brightened right back up and stalked back across the diner, heels clicking pleasantly across the tiles. "You really wanna know?" 

"Hell yeah I wanna know." He dropped the menus on their tray, propping against the counter and making impatient clicking sounds with his tongue. Angie stood in the doorway to the kitchen, tapping her fingernails and debating his integrity. 

Apparently he ruled out positive because half a minute later she sighed, throwing up a hand in defeat. 

"Alright, you got me. There's somebody, and I like 'em plenty fine, but I ain't _ever_ tellin' you who, so don't bother askin'." She pointed a finger at him and Bucky smiled innocently, turning his palms up. "You don't fool me, Brooklyn. You're trouble." 

Trouble or not, he knew Angie Martinelli had a crush and if there was anything Bucky could get a medal in for most valiant effort, it'd be double date wingman. 

 

 

"Hey Peg, you got time to go to the diner for lunch?" Steve sat his Stark™ patented ass on the edge of her desk, peering down at her files and thank _god_ she'd slid the unauthorized one in her desk five minutes ago. 

"I don't," she looked up with an apologetic smile and waved the stack of papers she'd been writing on. "Hung up on decoding an entire page of German correspondence." 

Steve sighed and made a face, deflating as he spun one of the papers on her desk with his fingertips, scanning the headline before looking back up.

"You sure you can't decode over pie?" He sounded so goddamned hopeful she almost caved, but she really couldn't afford the time. 

"Sorry, Rogers. Feel free to go on your own, though." She picked her pen back up, circling the fifth letter of the line and making a star beside it. She didn't look up as she started making dashes, side comment nonchalant and casual. "I'm sure Bucky would be elated to see you." 

"I can't go on my own," Steve complained, picking up another one of her pens and twisting the cap off. 

"Why not?" Peggy still didn't look up from her papers. 

"Because. That'd be...I don't know. Wouldn't that be weird to show up to Bucky's work just to see him?" 

She lifted her head then, raising an eyebrow at Steve. "I thought you were going for pie." 

"What? Yeah, uh, yeah of course. But it _is_ where he works and I see him when I go home anyways and uh..." He slid off her desk, taking a step backwards and adjusting his suspenders. "You know what, I'm not that hungry anyways. I'll see you at clock out, yeah? Okay. I'm gonna go now, uh. Good luck with your decoding." 

Steve waved a vague hand and backed away, knocked into the closest desk, cursed and tried to straighten the pencil mug he'd toppled over then he gave a quick wave and turned around, bright red as he slinked back to his desk. 

Curious, Peggy watched him go and wondered what the hell that was about. Steve hadn't been that...awkward since she'd shot his shield the first time. 

But he'd been stumbling over her because he'd liked her and didn't know what to do with that. So why the hell was he stumbling over talking about the man who'd been his best friend his entire life? 

 

 

The lunchtime crowd was vaguely cranky and otherwise boring, the rest of the day drawling by in a blur of sandwiches and red lipstick-dames. By the time four o'clock rolled around Bucky was exhausted, dead on his feet as he slumped against the kitchen wall. 

"You look totally wiped, you feelin' okay?" Angie dropped a dirty dish in the sink and gave him a concerned look. Bucky sunk further down, rolling his head against the wall. 

"So many dames," he groaned, wiping a hand over his cheek in an attempt to erase the bright red lipstain on his cheekbone and probably just smearing it everywhere. 

"Oh poor you, your life is just so hard," Angie rolled her eyes and tutted, dampening her handkerchief and crossing the kitchen to dab it at his cheek. 

"It ain't ever gonna come off like that," Bucky complained, reaching for the handkerchief. Angie swatted his hand and pursed her lips, dabbing at the spot again. 

"Which one of us wears lipstick every day?" She flipped the cloth and wiped it hard down his cheek once, then she gave him a sympathetic look and a little shake of her head. "That was definitely not your color anyways, honey." 

"Good to know." Bucky leaned towards a platter hanging on the wall, scanning his reflection in the reflective surface and running a hand over his cheek. "Ugh, frikin' dames. They're gonna kill me one a' these days." 

"Well you're the one who's gonna marry one," Angie replied with a shrug, dumping her kerchief in the soapy sink water. Bucky snorted, turning away from the wall platter. 

"You'd see me in lipstick and rouge before you see me walkin' down the aisle to tie the knot with some dame." 

Angie's eyes widened before she broke out in a surprised laugh and shook her head. "The mouth on you, Brooklyn, I swear." 

Bucky puckered his lips, making wet kissy sounds as he fluttered his eyelashes, barely dodging the flicked thwap of Angie's apron. He nudged her shoulder on his way to the sink, taking the first dish off the pile and starting to scrub. Angie came up next to him, wringing out her handkerchief. 

"Really though, there's nobody catchin' _your_ eye? I fessed up, so quid pro quo. Somebody you're wishin' left that plaster on your cheek instead?"

"Hmmm. Well...there is this one. Shinin' crystal blue eyes. Dresses all smart, wickedly good lookin' with brains to boot. Whole town watches when the door opens. And every morning I get the pleasure of wakin' up and lookin' at that beautiful face..." He sighed dreamily, staring out over the empty dinner, his tone still drifting joyfully as one corner of his mouth curled up, "...in the mirror." 

Angie threw up her hands with an exasperated sound and Bucky laughed the whole time it took her to clean up the tables for dinner rush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like the exact opposite of my other Stucky fic [This is My Last Breath](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2741975/chapters/6146123) because that one is like 300% angst and this one is so like...cheery.
> 
> It's weird.
> 
> Anyways, chapter title is from Zarif's [Box of Secrets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uum-jjo97jo)  
> And the fic title is based off the Cartinelli video [Vintage Girlfriends](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuQcIr9Nbsc), except I switched it to the tumblr's "neutral boyfriend/girlfriend gender word" of _datemates_ because it's freakin' amazing. 
> 
> And until timlb is done, no promises on when I'll update next but I promise it won't be super long. 
> 
> (Can I get a hell yeah for Bucky & Angie being bffs? if you wanna reblog my Bucky painting and therefore link to this fic on tumblr, that's [here](http://highwaytostairway.tumblr.com/post/116499843609/in-which-bucky-barnes-is-a-waiter-at-the-l-l). Come hang out with me if you want! All comments and kudos are much appreciated!)
> 
> xx


	2. here come the boys, we're gonna show a little more

The nice thing about the coffee shop she visited some mornings was that the only people who knew her there was the barista. Until Bucky came bursting through the door like a Hollywood star. 

"Peggy? Hey!" He exclaimed, passing the entire line to sidle up next to her, bumping her shoulder playfully with his. The barista was pouring the water for her tea - she'd been in a rush this morning and hadn't had the chance to boil her own - so she had to oblige Bucky for whatever godknows reason he was here. 

"Have you been following me?" She asked, inching to the left a step so his shoulder wasn't pressed up to hers. Bucky leaned against the counter, all long muscles and hard lines as he crossed his arms over his chest. 

"What? No." He made an offended face and Peggy raised a single eyebrow. "I'm a sniper, I pick up on people's patterns." Bucky threw a hand in the air like she was the crazy one, then he leaned a fraction closer, eyebrows furrowed together in mock sympathy. "If you wanna be mysterious, you've gotta be more random than the only coffee shop by Bell Station that sells decent English tea."

The innocent expression on his face was fooling no one. Although Peggy could admit it was decently impressive he'd found her in here. 

"You tracked me down by my preferred morning drink," she clarified, leaning a hip on the counter and crossing her arms over her chest herself. 

"Or maybe I tracked you down by the mileage of your route and the fact that you wear high heels and walk to work." The smug expression had shifted, a challenge on his face now as he raised an eyebrow, daring her to call his bluff. But she'd never belittle Barnes's tracking skills or intelligence. Especially when doing the opposite got him much more offended. 

"You really are cut out for more than a diner boy," Peggy smiled brightly and - exactly like she'd suspected - Bucky deflated in annoyance. 

"Ugh, don't you try to recruit me too. I'm not workin for the goddamned phone company." He waved a hand at Peggy's stiff professional clothing like it was the worst thing he could imagine. Then that spark hit his eyes - that same spark he and Steve shared, that mischievous _I have an idea_ spark. 

"Besides," he drawled, glancing around the coffee shop like he was seeing it for the first time, like he hadn't already scouted every exit and patron within seconds of walking in. "Maybe I just tracked you down by your bright blue suit. Or maybe it was as easy as asking Angie 'hey, where's Peggy Carter get her morning coffee?'"

And there it was. For all the infuriating things about James Barnes, that was the worst. He refused to admit he was smart, that he amounted to anything. He'd always wave people off, say Steve was the brains of the operation. Like he wasn't the best sniper in the army and one of the most excited intellectuals she'd ever met if you wanted to talk about anything from art to science. 

"Fair enough, you've proved your point." Peggy shrugged, reaching across the counter to grab her tea and nodding at the barista before turning on a heel, shooting Bucky a side glance as she glided past him. "You'd rather pretend you're daft than take on responsibility. I get it." 

Bucky scowled and followed her out the door. “I'm responsible. But that's not the point. I didn't track you down so we can argue about how I tracked you down.” He jogged to catch up, falling in step beside her on the sidewalk as he nudged her shoulder like the man-child he was. “I wanted to ask you for a report.”

“Last I checked, the SSR doesn't give classified information to citizens.” The solidifying click of her heels on pavement after that statement was immeasurably satisfying, only Bucky didn’t look chagrined at all, a distant little knowing smile on his face and yes, she’d suspected that. 

Not that she could blame Steve, if she was living with an expert strategist who had a lot of personal experience with the case, she’d probably ask his advice and share government secrets too.

But he snapped out of it pretty quick, shaking his head and dislodging a piece of the wave, a few broken strands curving over his forehead as he gave her a serious look.

“Not the kinda report I'm lookin for. You're probably going to laugh at me for sayin this--”

“Well I definitely will now,” Peggy offered, and Bucky ignored her.

“--but is Steve holdin' up okay? I know you're there with him and and all, which I'm real grateful for, don't get me wrong. It's just...no one’s givin’ him trouble? Cause Steve would never say, not ‘til he came home bleedin' and god knows that ain't gonna happen at the SSR.”

Peggy quietly listened to him ramble, the concerned undertones in his voice. He cared _so much_ for that boy and really, she got it, Steve was made of pure gold. It was just...starkly obvious sometimes, who’d really saved who back in Brooklyn all those times. 

So she didn’t laugh, even though she’d planned to. Instead she pursed her lips, giving it to him straight. “There were a few agents who were...questioning his qualifications, but I think that's all settled out.”

Bucky screwed up his eyebrows, step faltering briefly. “The hell would they question his qualifications for? Anybody with any clearance could get ahold of his file, see more qualifications than they're ever gonna need.”

Peggy glanced at him, not seeing where he was going with this. He rolled a hand in the air as he clarified. 

“So whoever says they've got a problem with him being a showgirl or whatever? It's a front, they’re using it as an excuse. There's something bigger goin’ on. Just. Keep an eye on him, okay?”

Of all people, she wasn’t one who needed to be reminded of that. But she gave him a nod anyways. Before nudging his shoulder back because what the hell, Bucky kind of made you want to act like a schoolkid sometimes.

“You really do have big brother syndrome,” she teased, looping her arm through his. Bucky gave her a smile that looked like a grimace underneath all that charm.

“Somethin like that,” he said too lightly, looking at the businessmen passing them by so Peggy wouldn’t see the tightness by his eyes. She saw it anyways. 

 

 

The SSR issued notebooks to write down important information during meetings, keep tally of plans and organize ideas. By the end of the first week, Steve's got adopted as his new sketchpad. It wasn't intentional at first, but now the margins were filled with detailed, shaded drawings. Some of which were good enough Steve considered tearing out the page to keep it. Only it kinda lost the effect with stats and meeting notes on the side. 

He was currently at his desk, waiting on those sheets to fax over and really there wasn't much else to be doing so he was in the middle of a sketch. A pretty good one too, except maybe Bucky's arms weren't quite that skinny, he had gotten some muscle during the war. He flipped over his pencil, smudging out lines and starting to resketch them when a sudden voice to his left made him look up.

"What're you up to?" Steve looked up, following Sousa's gaze and the curious tip of his head to the notebook sitting open on the desk. 

"Oh nothing. Just doodling." He waved a dismissive hand, swiveling his chair to face Daniel - who was nodding, looking kinda interested, actually. 

"Peggy said you were an artist." Sousa shifted his weight on his crutch, pointing a finger curiously at the notebook. "Can I see?"

Steve reluctantly picked up the drawing, turning it around and handing it half over, holding up one end so Sousa didn't have to lean against the desk. 

"Wow. This is really good." He took a moment before he pushed it back, cocking his head to the side as he looked it over from afar. "Sergeant Barnes?" 

Steve's head shot up, looking at Sousa in surprise before looking back down at the shaded paper. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess," Sousa smiled and Steve decided maybe he wouldn't be so reluctant to hand over his drawings next time. 

"Rogers!" A voice barked out from behind him. "You have work to do? We don't pay you to socialize in the SSR." 

And there came Agent Thompson, striding by all high and mighty like the righteous king of the world. "I understand that may be hard for a showgirl to cognize, but hey." He threw his hands in the air, overexaggerated frown of pity as he tipped his perfect head of hair in Steve's direction. "You wanted the job."

Then he spun on those clippity heels, stalking off to terrorize somebody else. Sousa muttered something under his breath that Steve wasn't paying enough attention to catch, watching Thompson's retreating back as he chewed the inside inside of his cheek. 

Sousa started to crutch away and Steve stopped him, leaning over the side of his desk and lowering his voice. "Hey. What's Agent Thompson's first name?" 

"Jack. Why?"

Picking his pencil up and tapping the eraser end on his mouth he leaned back in his chair, swinging both feet up on his desk again, and watching the sharp shoulders and crisp walk from across the room. "Just curious.” 

 

Per usual, the evil landlady was at her perch, scowling over papers with beady eyes through extravagant glasses as Angie stepped up to the desk, smiling wide enough to hopefully get a smile back. 

She didn't. 

But the evil landlady did give her the few envelopes from her mailbox. One from her grandma, another for bills. A third unmarked one that looked like it might be interesting. Maybe like something out of a spy movie. Wouldn't that be neat. 

"Anything for Carter?" Angie leaned on the counter and cocked her head congenially as evil landlady looked up from her glasses. 

"No, not today." She made a tutting sound that Angie'd decided was one of her most diverse vocabulary forms. Then she peered up over her glasses, bird hands stilling on her paperwork. "It's quite good of you though, Ms Martinelli, to take that...aloof girl under your wing."

Another tutting sound as she turned back to her papers and Angie glanced over her shoulder before leaning full on the counter, hair bouncing around her cheeks. 

"She's a good one alright. And I'd say more..." She straightened again, waving a hand in the air as she tried to think of an appropriate word for Peggy Carter. "...delightfully mysterious than aloof."

The evil landlady pushed her glasses up her nose, pursing her lips in that unimpressed I SAVE WOMENS VIRTUE look she wore the greater majority of the time. 

"Mmm _hmm_ , I'm sure that's what all her suitors say too." She waved a bird hand in Angie's direction, dismissing one already checked out. "Now run along."

Angie drifted all the way up to her room. She'd just never thought about it before. Well, of course. It'd make sense. But now that it'd been mentioned, she wasn't sure she'd ever _stop_ thinking about Peggy's _suitors_. 

 

The apartment kitchen was nice and cool with the windows open, thin blue curtains fluttering in the breeze. The wind was his new best friend, keeping his skin cool so he didn't soak sweat into his white tanktop. His shift had ended way before Steve's, for once, so that meant he got to tidy up the apartment and start on that project he'd been planning for a while now. 

They'd never had the money for Bucky to make a proper one before, but with both their army pensions, the thank-you checks from Steve's USO tour, and the Howling Commandos film money - plus the double income supporting this place - they had plenty enough for him to splurge on some nice wood, screws, and a carving knife. 

Well. He already had the knife.

Two pieces of thick wood were on the floor by his bare feet and a third was propped on the counter, secured down by his forearm so it'd hold still as he carved into it. The design wasn't all that complicated and it was sure a hell of a lot easier to slice through nice wood than all those metal lighters he'd scratched sayings into back in the war. 

He was wiggling the knife and halfway through knocking out a chunk between a swirl and the decorative border when his eyesight suddenly went black, two warm hands covering his eyes from behind. 

"What are you, twelve?" Bucky complained, setting down the knife and straightening up to pry Steve's fingers off his face. Except Steve was way too strong to just pry off anymore. 

"I was an adorable twelve year old," Steve replied haughtily, tugging Bucky a foot backwards from the counter. Really, he couldn't disagree, the twelve year Steve had been precious. "And you're supposed to guess who." 

"The asshole who almost made me slice off my thumb by covering my eyes?" 

The hands disappeared then, quick as they'd come, and Steve was peering around his shoulder, finally taking in the carving knife and the pieces of wood. He was in his work clothes, jacket probably hung by the door but still toting the dark red suspenders crossing at a Y in the back, crisp white shirt with matching red and purple tie to match. 

"What are you making?" Apparently curiosity overruled his temporary concern for the well-being of Bucky's fingers and he sighed heavily at the dismissal of his most crucial weapon, shaking his head as he swept the wood shavings into the trash he'd pulled out. 

"No ' _sorry I almost just destroyed your best feature_ ' or nothin'?" He raised an eyebrow at Steve, who was busy running his fingers over the carved portion of the pole and didn't bother looking up. 

"Your hands aren't your best feature," Steve said offhandedly, then he looked up and tapped a finger against the wood seriously. "This is really good, Bucky."

He was still kinda stuck on what in the world Steve thought his best feature was, but he managed a shrug and a cocky smile anyways. "Course it is. I'm not a total failure when I try." 

"You're not a total failure ever," Steve corrected, then he scooped up the length of wood, noticing the two uncarved ones on the floor and picking those up too. "What are these for?" 

"Project I've been meaning to start for awhile. Had some extra time today, figured better now than never." He grabbed the box of screws and the knife, brushing off more wood shavings before following Steve to the tiny closet they'd deemed as the art supplies closet. It also doubled as the linens and cleaning supplies closet, but you learned to compact your life pretty well living in New York real estate. 

"Well it just so happens I have some extra time today too." Steve looked over his suspender-clad shoulder, giving Bucky a wide smile that he had to roll his eyes at. 

"And? What are you suggesting?"

"We've still got two hours of daylight left, we should do something." Steve closed the art supplies door and spun around, wiggling his tie loose before slipping it over his head. "I'm gonna change, you work your magic and find us something to do." 

"It's not magic!" Bucky called after him as Steve started unbuttoning his shirt on the way to bedroom. Then the door closed and Bucky twirled in a circle, biting his lip as he looked around the apartment for inspiration. The kitchen window was still open, breeze flowing in, and it was _quite_ nice outside. 

"Not magic," Bucky mused to himself, both hands on the windowsill as he leaned out into the open air and looked upwards. "Just creativity." 

 

“...and she’s done like nine auditions now, she’s _really_ good. Like, way better than you were as a showgirl.” Bucky snickered at his own joke but Steve just hummed, tapping the sketchpad resting open against his thigh. 

“But she hasn’t gotten any parts yet?” He rolled his head across Bucky’s stomach, peering over white fabric to his sternum, only Buck was still laying flat on his back and he couldn’t see much but the scruffy underside of his chin, so he turned back and re-settled his head against Bucky’s stomach. 

“No, don’t know how. Last time the assholes said she wasn’t _dramatic enough_. You’ve met her, that girl is--”

“More dramatic than you?” Steve offered, reaching up to poke Bucky’s thigh. Except when he was using Bucky’s abs as a pillow that left him in a really good position to get thwacked. Which he did. “Owww.”

“You had that comin’,” the smug voice shot back and if it’d been three years ago, he’d have punched Bucky again for that. But they’d grown up, fought a war together, matured as adults, they didn’t do childish things like punch each other anymore. 

So Steve sat up, blinked at the empty roof of their building to let his eyes adjust to the change from staring at the sky for an hour, looked over his shoulder at Bucky, who was still stretched out on the ground like a lazy cat in the sun, and didn’t punch him because they weren’t children. He full-body tackled him instead. 

Bucky squawked but Steve was already double rolling them over, pinning Bucky to the roof with his feet and hips, except then Buck _finally_ caught on, grabbing his ankle and pulling him sideways enough to tip his balance. 

Then he landed on top of Steve and stuck both his big hands in Steve’s hair and _ruffled_ , and there went ten minutes of carefully slicked gel into a perfect golden swoop ~~or maybe it’d been a little longer than ten, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how goddamned sharp Agent Thompson looked in comparison~~. 

See, you can mess with a lot of things, but not your best friend’s _hair_. 

He sent his knee into Bucky’s gut and the air went out of him like a popped balloon, doubling over and clutching an arm over his stomach, giving Steve the perfect opportunity to slide out from underneath him and shove him down onto his back. He tried grabbing Bucky’s wrists, only Bucky fought back hard, waving his arms around in Steve’s grip and making it basically impossible to pin them down. 

Odds are he looked like a total fool, hair fucked up ridiculously, unsuccessfully attempting to pin the squirmy boy beneath him down while simultaneously trying not to get bucked off or kicked. 

“Goddammit, stay _still_ ,” Steve grit through his teeth and Bucky grinned that victorious smile up at him and that was enough of _that_.

In a quick kick-pull motion Steve flipped Bucky onto his stomach, tugging his arms behind his back and pinning them to his lumbar spine with a knee as he leaned over the side of Bucky’s face, pulling his head back with a (careful) handful of crisp, gelled hair. 

“Do you surrender?” he demanded, tugging on Bucky’s hair a little harder to prove his point. Crystal eyes glared at him for a moment, then Bucky rolled them exaggeratedly and slumped back to the roof. 

“You suck, Rogers. Asshole,” Bucky grumbled, voice obscured with his mouth half-squished by the ground and Steve cheered, taking his knee off Bucky’s back and standing. 

Then he was on his ass, somehow, tailbone smarting from the fall and Bucky was on his feet, fists raised as he cocked an eyebrow at Steve. “I didn’t say you won. You ever gonna _not_ fall for that?”

“You ever gonna learn to fight fair?” Steve shot back, pushing himself off the ground and brushing off his hands. If Buck was gonna play that way, fine. He could play dirty. 

“The hell do you know about fighting fair? All those bullies you took on as a scrap, which one of those was fair?” 

“Not,” Steve darted a quick kick for the side of Bucky’s knee but he saw it coming and dodged, “-what I meant.”

“C’mon. That the best you got? Let’s see what the great Captain America has to sa-- _ah_ , bastard,” Bucky stumbled backwards a few steps, rubbing the just-punched bicep in pain. Then he straightened out, raising his fists again and narrowing his eyes. “Okay, I get it. Enough talking, let’s fight.” 

For all Buck's pretended grandeur and incredible eye, Steve was stronger now. They both knew each other’s weakspots which made the landed kicks and soft punches and arm chops and blocks way worse than they’d normally be, but they also weren’t actually out to hurt each other. 

Which is why, after a perfectly placed jumpkick to Bucky’s chest had him stumbling for the ledge of the roof, the game ended so quickly it couldda been a lightswitch. Thankfully the brick half-wall lining their apartment building’s roof was too high to just tumble over, but Steve’s heart stopped in his chest anyways, rushing forward to pull Bucky back from the ledge even harder than he’d kicked him there. 

“Are you okay?” He took Bucky’s face in his hands, one palm cupping the side of his neck and the other tilting his chin back and forth he looked Bucky’s face over for any pain. 

“I’m, ah. Fine. I think I cut my arm on the brick, but it’s no big _ow_!” Bucky hissed and pulled his arm away from Steve, who’d ran his fingers carefully along the back of Bucky’s arms while he talking, managing to find the wound before Bucky could feign its severity. 

“You’re bleeding.” Steve turned Bucky around with an non-negotiable shove to the shoulder, taking Bucky’s left arm in his hands to inspect the cut just below his elbow, a patch of skin scratched raw but not too deep, blood welling in a few spots and a few brick and dirt particles embedded in others. “We need to clean and dress this.”

“Steve, I got grazed by a bullet last year and didn’t even wrap it up until an hour later, you seriously going to freak over a little--ow! Stop it, that stings!” Bucky swatted at his hands and Steve decided yeah, they were definitely going to clean that out. 

“C’mon. Nurse Rogers has got you.” He threw an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, careful not to get the blood on his fingertips against Bucky’s white tanktop. 

“You’re a terrible nurse,” Bucky complained, letting Steve lead him back down the fire escape towards their apartment. “You don’t even know how to take care a’ yourself, how’re you spos’d to take care of me?”

“By you shutting up so I can clean out your damn arm, that’s how.” 

As soon as they got back to the apartment Steve led Bucky straight to the bathroom, letting him prop against the sink while he rummaged through their cabinet for alcohol and wrap bandages. 

Thankfully, because it was on the back of his arm, Bucky couldn’t insist on doing it himself or possibly wreck it up more, instead he was just folding his arm in half and trying to peer over his wrist at his elbow to see. 

“Hold still.” Steve took his arm, folding it back down and straightening it out to a halfway point so the wrap could give him maximum movement, rotating Bucky’s shoulder to give him a better angle.

“Steve, uh. Careful with the shoulder?” The words were quiet enough to alert all the _Bucky’s hurt_ bells in his head, but he knew well enough what happened to Bucky’s left shoulder, had been the one to pop it out of socket grabbing his hand from a speeding train with the wind whipping him hard in the opposite direction. 

He’d been the one to pop it back into socket too, after pulling Bucky up onto the train floor with him, both of them crawling away from the gaping entrance and collapsing against the wall, looking at each other with their hair fucked up and Bucky cradling his arm, but the very real reality of what could’ve just happened hanging between them. 

They hadn’t hugged, but they should’ve. Zola was still on the train, there was still a mission, they didn’t have time to stop and hold each other after every almost-death or grazed bullet. 

Steve did hug him when they got back to camp, though. For a while. And Bucky had only called him a sap twice for it. Which was basically the most poignant way he knew how to say thank you. 

To his credit, Bucky managed not to bitch once during the painful part. It wasn't until after Steve had picked the rock pieces from his skin, dumped alcohol over the wound, and started to wrap up Bucky's arm that he began talking again. 

"You're surprisingly good at that. You know, if you hadn't put your life on the line for a science experiment you coulda been a great military nurse."

"You said I was a terrible nurse five minutes ago," Steve snipped off the excess cloth, tucking it back in the first aid box. "Besides, I'm nowhere near good-lookin' enough to be a nurse."

"Well we all know _that's_ not true." 

His head snapped up, staring in surprise that Bucky'd actually complimented him for once, then the pretty head turned and caught his expression, quickly opening his mouth to clarify. 

"The terrible nurse thing? I'd never say that." He widened his eyes in fake admonishment and Steve just sighed, straightening the edge of the cloth wrapped over Bucky's arm. "But I might if you don't hurry up." 

"Okay, okay I'm done. You're welcome, by the way." Steve straightened up, putting away the supplies as he mentally mused over what they had in the pantry. "You want anything specific for dinner?" 

"Whatever's fine." Bucky was inspecting his bandaged arm in the mirror so Steve let him be and headed to the kitchen. 

The worry came later. 

He was brushing his teeth, getting ready for bed when he decided to check on his stupid arm wound, make sure it hadn’t bled through the cloth any. 

Except when he peeled back the bandage, it was gone. 

Bucky stared in the mirror for a few moments, then took the whole wrap off and ran his fingers over the skin. It was entirely patched up, soft and regular like the raw scrapes had never been there at all. 

What the hell? 

The thing was; during the war he was always bloody or bruised somewhere, didn’t ever have the chance to notice a specific wound’s healing rate. But now that he didn’t have eight layers of grime and blood on his skin, he knew where his wounds were and therefore, kinda noticed when they stitched themselves up inside of a few hours.

That wasn’t just abnormal, it was...impossible. And staring at the blank space in the mirror, something told him he should _really_ not tell Steve. 

Bucky wrapped his arm back up slowly, having to go on memory of where the wound had been because there was no proof left where the bandage should go, fastening it tightly to his arm and wondering what the hell was wrong with him. 

 

"Hey English," Angie piped up with a smile, pouring an unnecessary half inch refill in Peggy's mug. "You workin' next Saturday?"

“If something came up I should be able to free up the day.” She cocked an eyebrow, lifting the mug to her lips to take a sip before tilting her head at the beaming waitress. “Is there any particular reason why?”

One slender hand propped on an aproned hip. “Well I've got the day off, figured we could do somethin' fun.” Angie swooped up a dirty plate from the table behind Peggy’s, making a face at the crumbs left behind. “Somethin' that doesn't involve pie for a change.”

The scrunched nose and dry tone of voice was just too adorable, Peggy had to set down her mug and smile. “I'll have you know you make a very delicious pie, Angie.”

“Oh honey, I don't make an ounce of the food in this place.” She flipped a hand at Peggy, smile on that face now as she leaned on the edge of the booth. “I can't bake pie for the life a’ me, I just serve it.”

“Well, then this is a decent pie made extraordinary by excellent service.”

“Oh Peggy," Angie tutted, waving her hand in dismissal. "You've been spending too much time with Captain America, all noble and sweet soundin'.”

“Speaking of which,” Peggy forced the ridiculous smile off her mouth, pursing her lips as she scanned the diner for that familiar distraction to take her mind off of _noble and sweet_. "Where's Captain America's sidekick?” 

“Don't let him hear you call him that,” Angie warned over her shoulder, setting the dirty dishes down behind the counter. When she made her way back she had her ordering pad in hand instead of a coffee mug. “But Brooklyn's sick, caught some sorta fever. I was gonna drop soup by his place after my shift, you wanna come with?”

“Sounds lovely.” Peggy watched as Angie scribbled something on the notepad, hip propped on the side of the booth again. She had to force the gears in her brain to work through the waitress-related sludge they always jammed into, running Angie’s words back through her head. “I'm surprised Steve's still at work if Bucky's under the weather.”

“Oh rainbow crow, I didn't say? Brooklyn said he'd tell the Captain _'over his dead body.'_ " She squinched her fingers in the air in air quotes and everything, pursing her lips as she swooped down into the booth seat across from Peggy, leaning over the table with that signature look on her face. "Said he'd do somethin stupid. Like skip work.”

"Yes, Steve would," Peggy sighed, crossing her ankles so her heels wouldn't clack against Angie's because that was absolutely unnecessary. Angie didn’t seem to notice the proximity though, leaning her forearms on the booth table and looking off dreamily in the distance. 

"Those two sure are protective of each other. It's kinda sweet, really. The way Barnes just lights up when anybody mentions Rogers? I wish somebody felt that way about me." He mouth curled up in a soft, sad smile as she stood again, grabbing her notepad and moving to leave, only Peggy couldn't let her walk away with that look on her face. 

She reached out, capturing the slender wrist in her fingers before Angie could disappear, then wide eyes were looking down at her in surprise. Suddenly aware of the burning in her fingertips Peggy drew her hand back, pursing her lips before offering a smile that hopefully didn’t give away the strange way her heart was pounding. 

“I’m quite sure someone does, or will, feel that way about you. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't.” The words felt odd coming out of her mouth, like maybe they didn’t mean what she’d meant them too, then Angie was giving her a confused smile so maybe she really had mucked that up--

“Well thanks, Peggy. That's real sweet a’ you to say.” The air between them was palpably tense, then Angie scooped up the empty plate again, her confusion smoothing out into general ease. “I'll meet you here at 5 to walk to Bucky's?” 

The rush of relief - she hadn’t messed anything up, thank goodness, although she wasn’t exactly sure why she’d thought she had - brought another smile to her face, this one much easier, so she meant every bit of the sincerity in her response.

“Of course.”

Then again, she hadn’t counted on having to climb seven sets of stairs carrying two oversized bowls of soup and her purse, but with the chipper way Angie was chattering, she couldn’t exactly complain either. 

Those loud knuckles rapped on the door, shifting her own (third) bowl of soup to her hip to free up a knocking hand, head tipped in curiosity as Angie glanced between Peggy and the closed door. 

Peggy swiveled to the side, peering over her shoulder to fully inspect the hallway. You couldn't tell too much from out here, and it was the first time she'd had the chance to visit, but it was nicer than she would've pictured Barnes to be happy in. Or Steve for that matter. 

After another familiar knock (how many times had Angie banged on _her_ door?), she tipped her head towards the door and raised her voice a few notches. "Hey, Bucky? You in there? It's Angie and Peggy, we brought you some soup." She banged again, facing the door head-on with that determined look on her face. "Bucky?"

When no answer came she turned to Peggy with an exaggerated shrug. "Maybe he's a real deep sleeper."

Peggy looked at the door suspiciously. Barnes was a lot of things, but as a soldier? A deep sleeper was definitely not one of them. She could attest to that first hand, couldn't remember the last time she'd slept without waking up at the sound of heels in the hallway. 

Which, ironically, was exactly the sound that made her perk up, the soft echo of shoes on stairs. Men's shoes, the heel didn't click as much as tap. She cocked her head to listen, then turned around just in time to see the subject of their visit stumble around the bend in the hallway. 

He startled when he saw them, jolting with surprise before straightening a little and cautiously advancing closer. He looked positively exhausted, running a hand through his hair to push the few sweaty, disheveled pieces off his forehead. 

"Oh. Uh. Hey," he offered, sounding as exhausted as he looked. 

Angie held out the bowl in her arms with a bright smile. "We brought you some soup! Now how 'bout you let us in?" 

With a smile a hell of a lot less chipper than Angie's, Bucky inched around them to unlock the door to his and Steve's apartment and he'd swear he could _feel_ Peg's penetrative gaze as he ushered them - and their three bowls of soup - inside. 

"That's really thoughtful, you didn't have to go outta your way to come see me." He closed the door behind them and fought the urge to turn the deadbolt and chains, it was just the girls and he was fine. Hell, the most dangerous thing on this block was his own hands, the lock thing would only raise the suspicious glances higher. 

"Of course we did. You're sick," Peggy replied, watching him with eyes that said she knew that wasn't the truth. Or, well, at least not the whole story. On the plus side she wasn't looking down at him with that ~~terrifying~~ scorn - so she didn't think he skipped work just to skip. Because he didn't, and it was kinda comforting that Peg didn't think _that_ lowly of him. 

Only thing was, that meant she might go searching for a reason. She was a girl who liked answers and she definitely could not have them. Not this time. 

Angie plopped her bowl down on the kitchen counter, looking around his apartment with excited eyes and an amazed smile. "Wow. This place is somethin'. Just the two of you live here?" 

She walked to the window like the place was her own, drawing back the curtain and peering down at the view. It was actually really nice, how easy Angie made herself at home. It made the awkward tension of Peggy curiously studying him a hell of a lot easier to handle. 

Bucky shifted his weight, trying to look as innocent as possible. "Uh. Yeah, just the two of us. It's not all that big, but. It works. We're never home much anyways."

“Clearly,” Peggy muttered under her breath. Bucky swallowed. 

See the thing was, he'd maybe told Angie a white lie. He wasn't sick with the fever exactly. But he had been at the doctors' today. Just not because he was feeling ill...kinda more like the opposite. 

Steve had been pressuring him to go for a checkup since they got back from the front but Bucky kept post-poning it. He just...wasn't sure he could lay out on another table for another stranger in a white coat with something sharp in his hands. He'd had his fill of that whole thing in Azzano. Fucking Arnim Zola. 

But after the other day, the roof and the cut on his arm that healed inside the time it took to eat dinner? He figured he owed it to what functioning-normally parts were left in his body to make sure everything else wasn't too out of whack.

So he'd forced himself through the door of the closest hospital. It took standing in the lobby for twenty minutes calming his heartrate before he managed to talk to the lady at the front desk. 

It took another five minutes of stumbling over words before a nurse came out with a soft smile and asked him quietly if he was a veteran. Specifically, a prisoner of war. 

He hated that word. Phrase. Designation. Whatever. But he nodded anyways, mostly really fuckin' grateful he hadn't had to say it. The nurse just widened her smile and lead him back to another room, one that didn't have a table at all. He sat down in the chair, confused and quiet. All his usual antidotes and lines kinda abandoned him and he felt about as empty as the room did. 

Then an easy, laid-back lookin' kinda guy came in, told him about the way they treated special patients. 

"It's pretty simple. We put you under with a light anaesthetic, then while you're out we lift you on a stretcher, take you to the operation room, and your body'll never know the difference. The checkup runs smoothly, then we've got you back in the chair before you wake back up and it's like the whole thing never happened. No episodes, no nightmares." 

He'd agreed. It still sounded terrifying, but there weren't a lot of options here. There was only one downside to this kind of treatment, they said. They brought out the monkey gas mask and Bucky forced himself not to dart out of his chair. 

"Now, the only potential risk is that the gas will leave you pretty woozy for the rest of the day. It's strong enough to keep you under, doesn't wear off too well. The dizziness should be manageable, but you'll need to go straight home and sleep off the rest of the effects." 

The nurses knelt beside him, loosening the straps on the mask as the doctor checked something off on his clipboard. 

"Due to the dangerous nature of the after effects, I have to ask. Do you have anybody who could pick you up?" 

Someone to pick him up. How much would Steve would love to be here? Always at Bucky's side, especially for the important stuff. He'd talk him through the whole thing with that deep voice of his, a comforting warmth and promise to carry him through the rough patches. Maybe he'd even hold Bucky's hand. 

"No, no. I'm good," Bucky heard his voice saying, watching in disconnect as the doctor's eyebrows furrowed and so his stupid mouth rambled on, bullshitting through the question heavy enough that the whole room could probably tell. "It’s not a far walk. Could do it with my eyes closed, been livin' in this part of town long as I can remember." 

All lies. But he had to. Steve couldn't be here. Steve couldn't know. Ever. 

Because when he woke back up, dizzy and disoriented in the chair again, the doctor was grinning down at him with a comforting nod. 

"Sergeant Barnes, there's not a single thing wrong. No toxins in your bloodstream, not a worry in sight. Muscle mass is at the exact ratio it should be, your metabolism is one of the highest I've ever seen. Your body is in perfect shape." 

And that's exactly what he’d been afraid of. 

"You know what?" Angie spun away from the window and Bucky lifted his head, focusing back in on the present and reeling in the urge to hurl. The room was shifting and threatening to tip at the edges so he focused on Angie's raised eyebrows and pursed lips, grounding himself in the necessity of company.

"You two should get a turntable," she declared, waving an arm at the living room. "Then you could drag that couch into the kitchen and it'd open up just enough space for a dance floor. Now who wouldn't want that?"

Ang put a hand on her hip and Bucky laughed, half at the suggestion and half at the idea of Steve dancing because if anything was precious, it was that. 

Except laughing was a bad idea because there went all the oxygen he'd been carefully reserving in his lungs. And suddenly his brain was gasping for air and the room was tipping. Shit shit shit. 

He blinked a few times before he realized he was looking at the ceiling, then it took a few more moments before he could feel the couch cushions under his back. And then Peg and Angie swum into vision, distant echoing words of "pale" and "swaying" and lots of British-tinted worry coupled with dramatic exclamations and hands patting through his hair. 

Mostly, Bucky was just trying to figure out how Peggy'd caught him and dragged him to the couch without Angie realizing she was a crazy strong super ninja spy girl. Except not really the ninja part. And she wasn't all that strong. His head hurt, fuck. Even the ceiling didn't want to stay still. 

Meanwhile, Peggy flattened her hand over the warm forehead and seriously considered second-guessing her worry of him not being sick. Now the worry was a lot more of him deciding to go out and about while he was sick. She thought the guilt had been for exaggerating symptoms, now she was pretty sure it was the opposite. Barnes was a goddamned fool, got that from his best friend most likely. 

Speaking of which, that was the moment when the apartment door swung open again. 

"Angie, Peggy! What are you guys doing h-- Bucky?" 

And then Steve was swooping to Bucky's side like the surreal angel he was, dropping to his knees beside the couch with that sweet worry etched heavy into his features. 

Bucky groaned in annoyance and by the sudden crease in his forehead Steve mistook it for pain instead, pressing his heavy hand to Bucky's forehead as he fretted. "Are you alright? What happened? Are you sick? Did you get hurt? Why didn't you tell me?"

"This," Bucky told the ceiling dryly, "This is why I didn't tell you."

Although, Peggy could note, despite the sarcasm in his voice and the chagrined exasperation on his face, he wasn't exactly pushing Steve's hand off him either. Then again, it probably wouldn't do any good to try at this point. 

"Because I'd worry about you?" Steve asked incredulously, like it was the most offensive thing Bucky'd ever said to him and Peggy had it on good authority Barnes had said a lot worse things than that. 

But because this dance between them was one they'd both waltzed a hundred times, Bucky lifted his head off the couch despite how much it must hurt and shot one of his signature _don't be fucking stupid Steve_ glares. "Because you'd do something stupid like skip work." 

And Peggy had to hold in the snort because it was like setting a match to a bomb, the way Steve's face shifted into this petulant, ridiculously cross look. Because everybody in this room - even Angie probably - knew that much was true. 

In lack of being able to deny it Steve turned a glare of his own, although it kinda lost its effectiveness when he was still kneeling concernedly beside the couch. "What, so you make them skip work instead?"

"Both our shifts were over," Angie offered, like that would help. 

Steve threw up his hands. Angie looked terribly sorry and it was quite endearing, but she'd learn. This was how Barnes and Rogers were. They threw verbal - and occasionally physical - punches instead of saying _I care about you_ like normal people did. Finally those sky blue eyes turned up, defeated with exasperation as he waved a hand in the air and half-glared at his best friend on the couch. "At least tell me somebody made soup." 

Angie's worry brightened again like a lightswitch, suddenly jumping away from the back of the couch and indicating the kitchen a few feet away. "We brought three different kinds. Maybe you could come show me which is his favorite? I didn't know but I'll bet if anybody does, it's you." 

She gave Steve a hopeful, dashing smile and some of his edgy concern faded as he straightened up, shooting Bucky another disapproving look before following Angie into the kitchen. 

"Or, you know, I also know my own favorite kind of soup," Bucky shouted after them before slumping with a sigh against the couch cushions and turning sad puppy dog eyes on Peggy. 

"Why's he got to do this? Is it some sort of twisted payback from when he was a kid?" The sarcasm was all gone, that rare free-flowing side instead, like she was getting to see the inside of his head instead of whatever constantly-crafted reply he gave everyone out of his Book of Comebacks. 

So she took the questions seriously, because there was always the chance Bucky was blind to it all. "I think he genuinely cares about you." 

"He’s got a funny way of showin’ it," Bucky sighed, closing his eyes and tipping his head back against the cushions. Now that he wasn't trying to stand, he actually had color in his face again, almost looked like himself as he tacked on another line. "Really though, I’ll be fine soon." He shifted a little and Peggy almost missed the next part, would've if she wasn't paying a devil of attention to every movement. "Too soon," he added under his breath. 

She pretended not to hear, for Barnes' sake, and made a mental note of the comment. Because that, that wasn't something people said every day. Maybe she'd been working too much lately, but that sounded a hell of a lot like a lead. A clue. 

But then Angie and Steve were back with warm bowls of soup and Bucky grumbled but conceded to eat it under the threat of being hand-fed if he didn't. 

Angie convinced them all with her endearing persistence and unparalleled adorableness into playing some sort of game to cheer Bucky up. Heartily agreeing with a smiling shake of his head, Steve brought out an old, beat-up chessboard, setting it up on the floor in front of the couch. 

They split into teams of two, girls versus boys. Half because teams were more fun and half because there were only two people with any cognitive ability to strategize right now. 

Bucky laid on the couch on his stomach and Steve propped his back against the edge of the cushions; so Bucky could rest his chin on Steve's collarbone and point over his shoulder, whispering moves and suggestions in his ear. It was the compromise in order for Bucky to stay laying down and still participate, but personally Peggy thought they just looked ridiculously comfortable. And kinda sweet. 

Although, in fairness, she had a charming brunette whispering moves in her ear too. 

"Take out that knight with the bishop," Angie whispered, hand cupped around her mouth and Peggy's ear to keep the words private, arm pressed warm against the sleeve of Peggy's dress. She scanned the board, raising her eyebrows and nodding. Angie leaned back triumphantly and Peggy moved a pawn to block Steve's queen from a Queen's Ray. 

Ang looked confusedly at the board for a moment before shrugging and going along with it. Bucky huffed in annoyance and turned his head to whisper something close against Steve's ear. And Steve proceeded to take out one of her rooks. Maybe Peggy'd underestimated Barnes's strategizing-while-disoriented abilities. Angie leaned over again and Peggy listened attentively as she got another whisper in her ear. 

"Block that left side pawn with the one in the third row, that should keep the next move from destroying the other rook." 

Peggy nodded again, biting back a grin at the excited smile on Angie's face as she straightened up again. She'd never played chess on the floor before, but it was quickly shaping up to be one of her favorite games. 

She took the remaining rook and slid it sideways a step, blocking both Steve's bishop and the pawn attack. Angie made a hmmm noise this time, but she still didn't comment on Peggy's blatant ignoring of her suggestions. 

Until three moves later, when Peggy nodded again after Angie's whisper and moved the exact opposite of what she'd been told. Angie was nine kinds of sweet, but she wasn't exactly a battle strategist. 

Apparently though, she'd caught on that Peggy thought as much. 

"C'mon, English. If you're gonna ignore me every time, what's the point a' me giving suggestions at all?" Angie crossed her arms over her chest and Peggy knocked one of Steve's pawns over before turning to the pouting Angie. 

"Oh, no. Don't stop, I like your ideas. Just because I don't...play them doesn't mean I don't like listening to them." She kept the words as sincere as possible because they were true, she liked the triumphant smile she got to give Steve as Angie whispered another cute move in her ear (that was at least decent). Besides, it gave her better insight on Angie's battle strategizing. You can learn a lot about a person through the way they play chess. 

And it had nothing to do with liking Angie's constant whispers in her ear or excuse for proximity. 

She got a calculating look and a moment of hesitancy, then Angie caved, scooting an inch closer and rolling her eyes before cupping her hand against Peggy's ear and whispering another move suggestion. 

This time when her idea got ignored, Angie just shook her head with an affectionate smile and leaned over again with her next battle plan. 

They were three quarters of the way through the game when Bucky fell asleep slumped on Steve's shoulder, his temple squished against the side of Steve's neck, eyes shut peacefully and his opinionated mouth parted slightly, breathing damp against Steve's crisp white shirt. It was quite picturesque, and by the little smile on Steve's face and the slight pink high on his cheeks, clearly he thought so too. 

At the heartwarming sight Angie put one dramatic hand over her heart, mouthing "How sweet," at the blushing boy. Peggy cocked an eyebrow at Steve, who crossed his eyes at her but was entirely unwilling to move an inch and disturb Bucky's sleep. 

So Peggy took the initiative and closed up the chessboard, carefully quiet as she placed the worn pieces back in their steel box and gathered the game up, finding its place in the closet she'd seen Steve get them from. 

By the time she turned back to the living room Angie had gathered their purses, waving goodbye with a content smile from the door. Steve lifted his free hand to wave them goodbye back, mouthing terribly sincere "thank you's" as they nodded from the doorway. 

Then the girls were gone and Steve let out the breath he'd been holding, turning his head just slightly to glance at the body sleeping on his shoulder. Buck looked exactly the same now as he always had when he slept, peaceful and shining with a soft clarity, like his skin reflected the light of the moon. 

It wasn't late enough to be very dark yet, but so long as Bucky was sleeping, Steve didn't have much of a reason to stay awake either. 

He slid carefully out from under Bucky's head, only long enough so he could stand properly. Then he scooped Bucky's sleeping body into his arms and god _damn_ , he had to be really far out of it if he wasn't waking up to protest being carried like a dame. 

But no such protest came and Steve carefully crossed the apartment, turning sideways to fit through the bedroom door and tucking Bucky as close to his chest as possible, careful not to let his dangling feet smack the wall as he turned and placed Bucky carefully down on his bed. Buck didn't even have the energy to curl up on his side and tuck a hand under his pillow, so Steve rolled him on his side for him. 

He'd never said it explicitly, but Steve was pretty sure sleeping on his back reminded Bucky too much of the torture table - and waking up disoriented and on his back wasn't gonna be a good combination. 

But for now he was sleeping peacefully, and strangely deeply. So Steve wouldn't get any ridicule for the touch of sentiment in his eyes as he leaned over Bucky's bed and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. Just a reminder, in his sleep, even if he couldn't recognize it. Maybe his subconscious knew what that meant by now. 

I'm here.

There was nowhere else he'd rather be. 

 

Which was, of course, why the first thing out of Thompson's mouth the next morning at work was "Lucky you, Rogers! You get to go on a field trip!" 

Steve plastered on the nicest smile he could manage and strolled past him without a word. Asshole Jack Thompson was not someone he was in the mood to handle right now. 

Thankfully, Bucky was doing wonders better this morning. He'd actually woken first and made omelettes for breakfast before Steve could manage to tie him to a chair or something. He'd been pretty pissed, striding into the kitchen ready to yell, only Bucky was whistling, the color was back in his cheeks, and he was flipping the omelettes expertly in the air to turn them over in the little frying pan. 

It must've been a twenty-four hour flu thing. Whatever it was, there was more than sufficient proof that Bucky was feeling worlds better. And so Steve had begrudgingly agreed to let them both go to work, although only under the condition that he got to walk Bucky there and have a conversation with Angie about keeping an eye on him. 

She'd flicked a wrist at him and pushed him out of the door with a hundred reassurances to keep Buck unconditionally healthy and safe. 

That didn't meant Steve could shake the terrible feeling of coming home yesterday to his best friend an invalid on the couch with absolutely no idea what was going on. After almost losing Bucky so many times in the war...so he was a little attached. Sue him. 

Which is why it made him kinda irrationally annoyed when Thompson's annoying greeting side comment turned out to be true. Chief Duley was taking a team to Virginia to question the scientists in Operation Overcast. And, surprisingly, Steve was asked to come along. 

It was a great opportunity and it was kinda shocking they wanted him along.

Bucky was feeling better now, so he really had no reason not to go. Well, besides that Jack Thompson was going too. Although...maybe he should start looking at that as _incentive_ to go. He might have the chance to prove to Jack he was more than a showgirl, or whatever the hell Thompson thought he was. 

So by the time the briefing was over, Steve was kinda looking forward to the trip. Unfortunately Peg wasn't invited - she got a sharp "Carter, we don't need anybody of your skill set," and quite a few snickers inquiring as to what exactly that skill set was (Steve would've loved to show them by demonstrating with punches to their misogynistic noses, but Peggy kicked him under the table like she was reading his mind. At this point it wouldn't surprise him). 

She didn't seem all that put out by not going, which was strange. Well, until she told him she had plans with Angie anyways, and suddenly there was nothing dampening the out of state trip at all. 

Fort Hunt was a plane ride away and they were only spending a few nights in a Virginia hotel, so it was all gonna be pretty routine. And honestly, maybe Bucky could use a few days to himself without being fretted over. 

PO Box 1142 was obviously nothing what it sounded like, but even the idea of a black site was nothing like the reality he'd pictured. For one, everything was white instead of black. 

Blank white corridors, blank white empty lab rooms. Empty white interrogation rooms. Well, as white as white could be in a facility like this. 

The team was small, tiny enough to fit easy on a plane and a couple hotel rooms. Tiny enough to walk the hallways in a square group. And Steve intentionally made a point to ensure he ended up walking right next to the other blonde, frigid cold to Steve's attempted warmth. 

"Are we here to talk to Wernher Von Braun?" Steve asked conversationally, glancing over at the pursed lips and consistently unimpressed gaze. 

"This ain’t rocket science, he's not our in," Thompson scoffed, then he halted to a stop in front of a nondescript door, shooting Steve that judgemental look as he turned the doorknob and swung open the door dramatically. "This guy is."

August Schultze was a small man with greasy hair and tiny eyes that glared even harder than Thompson did. He was stubborn as hell too, pretended not to even know the name Arnim Zola. 

That is, until Thompson got him alone. Steve leaned quietly against the wall in the hallway, mentally debating the necessity of light torture for information when it could potentially save lives versus the morality of not torturing at all, but he barely got through two opening statements in his head before the door opened again and Thompson strode into the hallway, smacking his hands together dramatically and starting off down the hallway without waiting. 

Steve had to jog to catch up, thankful he didn't have to breathe heavy as he fell in step beside Jack, raising his eyebrows as he matched the quick pace down the hallway. 

"Well?" He prodded, because he'd been more interested in mentally debating torture than utilizing superhearing to focus through the soundproof walls. 

"Oh he's definitely our in." Thompson grimaced, wiping his hands on his pants, and Steve was going to hope that was the general overwhelming smell of the facility, not the copper tinge bleeding into the air of fresh blood. 

The strangest sense of relief flooded over Steve and he stared down at his shoes, watching them click noisily over the concrete floors, suddenly and irrationally glad Bucky had refused to work for the SSR. He’d had enough torture and blood in his life, he deserved to have the easiest, simplest job in the world. No more sniper scopes, his biggest worry making sure the diner didn’t run out of pie. 

This life had taken too much from them already, and Steve had never been more thrilled _not_ to be with his best friend. He could take this, he could carry the weight of the Zola case and all the other shit, he’d do this so Bucky didn’t have to. He’d carry the world if it kept the weight off good people’s backs. 

And he’d say he was glad Peg wasn’t here too, except she was probably even better built for this life than he was. Speaking of carrying, there wasn’t a person he knew who could hold people up, be more solid of a rock than Peggy Carter. Actually, selfishly, Steve almost wished she’d come along. She was the backboard for most of his moral obligatory questions and he could really use her opinion on the bloody state of Jack’s knuckles right now. 

Where was the line? When did torture become okay? How many lives had to be saved to erase the one they stripped away? Peggy would know. Or, at least, she’d make Steve sure of himself, that whatever opinion he came to he was justified. 

But she deserved time off too, she’d seen so much, gone through the war with the rest of them, just as strong as any soldier Steve fought beside. So he’d carry this for her too, for both of them. And he’d just pray the world didn’t crush him while he balanced it between his shoulderblades. 

 

He was lying in the unfamiliar hotel room bed and staring at the ceiling when a knock sounded at his door. The only person he ever talked to that was on this trip was Jack, and that talking was always arguing, so he seriously doubted he was being called on by Agent Thompson at eleven-thirty at night. 

Swinging open the door cautiously, the knock made only a little more sense when he saw the hotel-uniformed clerk standing trepidatiously in the hallway. He’d been perfect silent in his evening workout, he wouldn’t imagine there’d have been any noise complaints…

“Can I help you?” Steve asked, pulling the hotel-issue robe tighter around his waist. He was wearing a white shirt and briefs underneath it, but it was a public hallway after all. 

“Captain Rogers?” The clerk asked, looking about as confused as Steve was. His confusion didn’t fade any when Steve nodded in confirmation, he just pointed over his shoulder with a shrug. 

“There’s a call for you, someone’s on the line in the lobby. Said it was urgent.” 

Steve furrowed his eyebrows but shut the hotel door behind him, following the clerk downstairs. Maybe it was Peggy. Nothing had better happened to Bucky, that asshole, he said he’d take it easy.

“Hello?” The booth was cramped, only three sided so he was sideways in it, phone hovering an inch away from his ear, a habit from when he was a kid and picked up diseases and bacteria on every surface imaginable. 

“Stevie! Hey, took you long enough,” a chipper voice shot back over the line and the pounding of Steve’s heart went down three notches. It was Bucky, and he sounded like he was okay. Which didn’t explain why he was calling - they didn’t even have a phone, he had to be at the payphone in the bottom floor of their apartment building - at eleven thirty at night. 

“What are you still doing up?” Steve turned a little more inwards of the booth walls, a bit of a smile on his face despite the craziness of it all. 

“Checking on you, punk. How is Virginia?” 

“Shh, you don’t know that. And…” He glanced around, keeping his voice quiet so passerbys couldn’t eavesdrop on the conversation. He really wasn’t supposed to reveal top secret information, especially locations of black site bases. But this was still Bucky, after all. Steve could no more keep a secret from him then cut off his arm. “...really boring. You sure you didn't just miss me?”

“Sounds like you miss _me_ , Rogers.” Bucky teased and god, it was good to hear his voice, even through the filter of the phoneline. 

“Yeah, totally miss the asshole comments when I come home from work every day,” he shot back, liking the way the words _come home_ felt falling off his tongue. The apartment wasn’t quite...home, persay, but it was the closest he’d had to one in a long time. 

“Hey, you're just lucky to be comin’ home to such a looker.” The signature Barnes line and cocky tone made Steve roll his eyes, even if Buck couldn’t see across the distance between them.

“Sure thing Buck, lucky is _exactly_ what I am,” he replied dryly, about as sarcastic as he could get and the tinkling laugh he got in return made everything kind of wash away into a smile. 

“And don't you forget it,” Buck reminded, a slight pause over the static filled with the soft sound of Bucky’s breathing, then the voice came back, only a touch quieter, “And make sure you come home safe this time, you hear?”

The note of worry in Bucky's tone was unmistakable and Steve melted a little. This phone call wasn't for Steve's sake, no matter how much Bucky may say it is. Buck was worried about him - one _night_ apart, and he was already worried - but old habits die hard. Although Steve would be entirely okay with this habit never dying.

“Sure thing,” he reassured, careful to keep the sentiment out of his voice because it would just make Bucky close up uncomfortably. They teased each other, that’s how they dealt with it all. “Just for you. I'll be back in a few days, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm holdin' you to that.” He could picture the eyeroll, maybe an affectionate smirk, then that comforting voice came back over the line one more time. “Give em hell, Stevie.”

And yeah, he knew exactly what that was and maybe he couldn’t refrain from just a touch of sentiment, it was goodbye anyways. 

“I miss you too,” Steve translated, just a little gooey, laughing as Bucky made an indignant sound and hung up the phone. The click resounded louder than it should’ve and he took the phone away from his ear, looking at the black receiver and letting the small smile creep onto his face. 

Bucky’d called just to check up on him, even though it was late, even though he’d been so tired yesterday, and so what if that made him feel all warm inside? 

“That your girl?” A voice from behind him sounded and Steve spun around, thankfully already having set the phone back in its cradle.

Jack Thompson was standing a little ways off, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised expectantly. Even this late, his hair was swooped perfectly, clean and sharp with a hat tilted sideways on his head, shadowing one eye and making him look like he belonged in the cinema. 

“What’s it to you?” 

Thompson shrugged exaggeratedly, looking at Steve with that judgemental purse of his lips. "Just tryin’ to make friendly conversation, Rogers."

Because he didn't feel like putting up with this bullshit and ruining the easy joy he'd had three seconds ago, Steve made a skeptical face and checked the watch on his wrist. "At a quarter to midnight?"

Jack raised his eyebrows and tipped his weight forward onto his toes and back again on his heels, rocking impatiently with that same unbeatable sassy expression. Steve was waiting for an answer, or at least some sort of fumble, but Thompson just tipped his head in Steve's general direction and popped his lips in annoyance. 

"You gonna get outta the phone booth anytime, or you want me to call your girl back for you?" 

Fine. Apparently that's how it was gonna be. He stepped out of the booth and brushed past Thompson, bumping his shoulder enough to jolt him but not enough to be malicious, just barely managing not to accompany it with a _screw you_. 

Jack bristled and glared over his shoulder. Steve smiled innocently and took the stairs back up to his room. He'd have to work harder than that to shake Steve. But it looked like maybe that ran both ways, too. 

 

The weather was perfect - crisp enough to wear her favorite dress and pumps, wind soft enough to ruffle instead of mangle her curls, and sunny enough to feel like summer.

But even if it were pouring down rain, it'd feel like summer anyways, the way Angie's smile lit everything up a jargon brighter. 

"Oh Peggy, hasn't this just been _fantastic_?" She looped her arm through Peggy's, navy blue dress fluttering in the wind as they walked down the marina docks. 

"It has been quite a lovely day," Peggy agreed, letting her gaze wander over the glittering waves, air crisp and salty on her tongue. 

They'd spent most of the day walking, exploring the New York streets in search of a place to eat that wasn't a diner with pie. The sun had been high over Central Park, the ducks hungry for breadcrumbs, the dogs friendly enough to make Angie coo over every single one and the whole day had been so simple, easy as a breeze and twice as sweet. 

The marina was their last stop for the day, watching the sun sink into the river from the benches on the docks. They sat down in a fell swoop of skirts, arms unhooking as they leaned back against the wood. 

A few seconds of peaceful quiet, then Peggy tapped the top of Angie’s leg and pointed off to the left. “You see them? I’ll bet you anything her ice cream drops when he leans over to kiss her.”

“What makes you think he’s gonna kiss her?” Angie furrowed her eyebrows, brown curls bouncing as she whipped her head over her shoulder, just in time to see the bloke lean forward and the treacherous, too-tall ice cream tumble. With the angle, it was about to fall anyways, and the way the fella’d been wiping his hands and nervously licking his lips there was no chance it could’ve played out any other way.

That didn’t keep the look of surprise and amazement from crossing Angie’s features as she spun back, gray eyes bright with sunlight and shock. 

“How in Devil’s name you guess that?”

Peggy shrugged, settling back against the bench and popping her stained red lips together. 

“It’s a special class they teach you in England. Required for all young adults, the wonderful skill of seeing the future.”

“Oh c’mon English, you’re pullin’ my leg,” Angie accused with a shake of her head and Peggy’s eyes widened innocently. 

“Absolutely not. It’s called the Art of Predictive Science. It’s especially useful for picking out blokes with crushes.” She gave her most convincing nod, barely able to leash in the smile as Angie gave her a skeptical - but possibly believing - look. 

“Just blokes?” 

“Oh, no. Ladies are even easier to read.”

“That so?” Angie glanced out over the water before tipping her head back towards Peggy, eyes lit up playful, and suddenly it felt like she was treading in very deep, treacherous water. 

“Mmm,” Peggy managed, looking around for any sort of distraction before she said something truly dreadful. A glint of metal in the sun and suddenly she had a brilliant idea. “Angie, have you ever been on a boat?”

“A boat? Nah, I ain’t ever known somebody rich enough to go out sailin’--”

“Alright, we’re going.” Peggy popped up off the bench, holding her arm out and waiting for Angie to stand too, a flummoxed expression as she looped her arm back through Peggy’s. 

“Goin’ where?”

“Sailing.”

Sneaking onto the deck was terribly easy, even with Angie’s surprised laughter and disbelieving glances towards the shore. Making sure the ropes were secured tight to the wooden dock, Peggy sat down beside her on the stern, wind whipping crazily at their hair. 

The railings were shiny, but the rest of the boat looked worn, well loved, just the kind of boat she’d love to take out sometime. It wasn’t technically a sailboat and it was still docked with no intention of moving anytime soon, but they were on a boat and really, that was the part that counted. 

They talked about everything and nothing and it was all so wonderfully simple, Peggy wondered why she’d never once felt this...unburdened. It was like for a whole day, she hadn’t had to be anybody but Peggy Carter. Nothing to prove. No misogynistic bastards, no government and societal system aimed against her. Just one of her best friends and the wind blowing off the water. 

Until they were joined by a third, much less happy party. 

“Hey! What're yer doin on me boat?”

The loud voice made them both jump and Peggy whipped around, standing quickly and forcing her hands not to shoot for a weapon. The sailor was standing on the dock a few feet away, scruffy and old, hat worn through and skin spotted from the weather. Glancing back at Angie, with her wide, surprised eyes, only made her realize just how exceptionally...pretty her friend was. She picked lovely friends. 

“Uhm. We were. Just testing the uh. Weight capacity, sir. Proper standard of sailing regulations, and. It looks like you’re all to order!” She grabbed Angie’s hand, dragging her up on the dock and giving the sailor her widest bullshit smile. “Have a great trip, sailor. The United Sailing Company appreciates your cooperation!”

She nodded quickly and tilted her head then they were both hurrying back down the dock to shore, heads down and heels clicking. Angie barely contained her laughter until the sailor was out of earshot, bursting into clapping and giggles the moment they got their feet on dry land.

“Where in heck did that come from? You’re an even better actress an’ me, Peg!” A soft hand shoved her shoulder playfully and Peggy smiled, shaking her head.

“Oh, I highly doubt that. Back to the Griffith?” 

“That sounds great.” Angie’s arm linked through hers again and they headed down the sidewalk, purses dangling on their free arms as they started back home. Concrete turned to cobblestone and in the dim lights of New York at dusk, the streets lit up a bit brighter as Ang gave her a sweet, small smile, cocking her head happily as the sign for their apartment building swung into view.

“You sure do know how to have a good time, Peg.”

Fourteen hours later, swinging her briefcase into the face of Muscle Hire Number Two, Peggy wondered if Angie would consider this a good time too. 

As soon as the man dropped to the ground she stole back into the shadows, careful and light on her feet so her red heels didn’t click on the ground and give her away. 

It was shady and dark, which presented much better cover. And made it easy to hear the next guard stalking down the corridor, presenting the perfect opportunity to jump out and straight-arm bar the back of his shoulders as she kicked his knees from under him, clattering to the ground loudly and odds are, this was not the kind of “good time” Angie would enjoy. 

But walking through the flickering-green corridor with three bodies piled up behind her and the intimidating click of her heels following her into the back of the warehouse, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t at least enjoy this a _little_ bit. The beating up people part wasn’t half as fun, but the triumph of walking away from that was a rush she would probably never tire of. 

Days off were nice. But days where the rest of the SSR were in Virginia and left her an opening to complete her own mission - those might even be nicer. Spending all day with Angie on Saturday and beating up thugs in a warehouse on Sunday, it was quite the perfect weekend. 

Truthfully, if she didn’t have a mission of her own here, she probably would’ve gone with Steve to Virginia and rescheduled her day out with Angie. But this way, she got answers _and_ spending time with her best friend.

The answers she was interested in particular were the kind she could probably convince Duley to look for on work hours and dime - if he wasn’t a bastard who didn’t hear a word out of her mouth. He’d call her foolish and meddling and out of place and she’d put up with that enough to know if she wanted anything done, she had to do it herself. 

Which is why she was here. Although, truthfully, there was also that part of her deep down that was fairly sure this was a mission the SSR could never know about. No one could ever know about, probably. Especially if her hunch was right…

But not to get ahead of herself. Right now she had come to meet with a very powerful man so that file she’d been working on could have some of its many blank spaces filled in. And by “meet with,” she meant storming into one of his seedy, backalley operation offices after beating up his useless Muscle for Hire guards. 

She kicked open the door because everything was better that way, and the look on Darkem’s face was 300% worth the spark it sent up her heel. 

“Who the hell are you?” The mustached man demanded, which seemed about the perfect time to lower her girly pistol in his face. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, carefully adopting an American accent so she wouldn’t be so memorable. Although by the way he was clutching his oversized, plush roly-chair armrests, she’d guess he wasn’t going to be forgetting her anytime soon. “We’re here to talk about you. Or, more specifically, your work with Hydra.”

“Hydra? I’ve never heard of--”

She knocked the heel of her hand into the binder on his desk, sliding it across the surface and sharp into his sternum. He cried out as the heavy thing dropped, scattering papers over the floor as he covered his bruised chest with a wounded look. 

“You were saying? During the war, their operations in Prague, Azzano, Graz, Lipton. They were all funded by the same company, which after a hell of a lot of code-breaking and tracking, lead some very scary people right here, to your door. So you’re going to explain to me why you were the money backer for Hydra’s torture lairs and you _will_ give me every single thing you know about them, past and present, or you won’t be leaving this room. Understood?”

The man blinked up at her, slicked hair shimmering grossly in the light, then his grubby mouth swallowed and he nodded. Finally, someone who was cooperative. She figured he would be, with all the guards he had for a simple rundown operation in the states, so it wasn’t surprise as much as another shot of triumph that had her smiling as she pulled up a chair, sitting down across from him with her gun still pointed, kicking her feet up on his desk and crossing her red shoes at the ankles. 

“Now speak.”

 

 

To be fair, it wasn't his fault. He'd grown up with one quite uniquely-featured model and whenever he was bored his hands just drew _familiar_ lines. Shapes he knew, had drawn a hundred times. 

Which was how he ended up sketching sloping, exotic lips into the corner of his notebook, rounded and full, because he'd drawn them so many times with the rest of that face, underneath the disheveled hair and crooked army hat. Or recently, a waiter's cap. 

It also wasn't his fault Agent Jack Thompson was a nosy bastard. 

One moment he was drawing boredly, feet propped up on the empty plane seat across from him and shoulder tucked against the cold window, suspenders hanging at his sides and overnight bag tucked in the plane's overhead storage - out of everyone's way, the back of the plane, minding his own damn business. 

And the next moment big hands snatched up his notebook, propped on Steve's armrest as Jack raised his eyebrows and made a bored, loud, popping sound with his stupid pink mouth. 

“Well those definitely aren’t Carter’s," he commented, snapping the notebook once in the air and leaning over, getting overly close as he widened his eyes and lowered his voice into a comic whisper. "These belong to mystery girl?"

Bucky'd shoot things if he heard people calling his lips girly. Not that it wasn't...a little true, but. Well, not girly as much as just. Sloped? 

But if Jack thought he was hitting a nerve with _Steve_ , he couldn't be further from it. The teasing meant nothing because Thompson was so far off base it wasn't even funny. Mystery girl.

So he rolled his eyes, snatching the notebook back and flattening his fingers against the pages to keep him from obsessively smoothing out the papers in his annoyance. 

"Don’t you have better things to do?" Like maybe get real work done and leave me alone? Steve added in his head. 

"Then harass my _favorite_ SSR Agent? Never." A heavy hand clapped on Steve's shoulder and he jolted with the force of it, then Thompson was striding away whistling, his sarcasm lingering in the air like maritime air and Steve had to spend three minutes in silence, forcing his blood back down from boiling and his fists to uncurl. 

 

Monday night Angie was working late, which was actually a bit of a blessing. Not that her company wasn't appreciated, she just didn't have the energy to turn down an excited waitress banging on her door with the temptation of schnapps. Although, to be fair, that didn't happen quite that often either. The schnapps part, anyways. Angie was banging on her door for something at least three times a week. 

But tonight she had her room at the Griffith to herself in silence, which meant the perfect opportunity to get her notes organized on her...personal mission. Which she'd yet to make up a code name for, although there wasn't much point in naming the operation when she was the only one who knew about it. 

And the more she was finding out, the more pertinent it seemed to stay that way. 

She circled a few words in her report, drawing arrows to connect them, and pondered if eventually bringing in Steve on this would be a morality confliction or a secondary conviction. Either way, she had nowhere near enough information yet to bring this to anyone else. It was all speculation at this point because that bastard Darkem turned out to be just about as useless as his Muscles for Hire brutes were. 

She did get one thing though - a combination of letters. Peggy sighed, repositioning the pillows she was propped against, and clicked her pen once more, scratching down the brief message she'd memorized.

At first, she'd thought it was an acronym. Then perhaps a code of some sort - but it wasn't until she saw them sketched out on the paper like that, awaiting their designation, that she realized what was missing. 

Numbers. 

She'd been looking for answers in the wrong people. 

Peggy sighed, knocking her head back against the wall dramatically. Really, she'd rather take on twenty MuscleMen then have to place _that_ phone call. 

But a lead was a lead and when it came to scientific equations, there was really only one person - no matter how irksome - who's experience and expertise would prove invaluable. 

And for a man who was quite valuable in wealth, you'd think he'd employ a butler who picked up the phone past nine pm. 

 

The moment the plane touched down, Thompson radioed in their location to Duley and they got the all okay, gold to go home for the night. It was nine and he was _exhausted_ , so really he’d love to trudge home and pass out as soon as physically possible. 

But there was something he had to do first. He swung out of the airport, breaking into a light jog the moment he hit the sidewalk because hell, he was already tired, might as well make himself a bit more exhausted on the way. 

By the time he pushed through the swivel door, Steve decided it'd probably be less humiliating to pretend he hadn’t come _straight_ here from landing, although it’d be pretty obvious with his work clothes and overnight bag still in hand. Whatever. 

The diner’s soft background music was still playing, lights dim on the street, the back wall of Pastries Soups Sandwiches pitch dark, lights over most of the booths shut off too. Closing up then, which meant perfect timing. 

The last of the patrons - two pretty girls with bouncing red curls - were standing, picking up their pocketbooks with flirty waves. One of them leaned over with puckered lips, pressing a quick kiss to their waiter’s cheek then they were both bounding for the door with ducked heads and a burst of giggles. 

Steve stepped to the side as they brushed past, unable to keep the smile off his face as he watched. 

Grabbing a rag from behind the counter, Bucky’s back was still to him as he called out good-naturedly, glancing through the partition into the kitchen. 

“Hey, this my color Angie?” He scrubbed at the mark on his cheek and Steve heard a distant tutting sound, maybe a quiet qip about the number of female customers skyrocketing lately, then a dish clanked and there was a pause. 

“Too orange for you, Brooklyn. You need cool undertones,” Angie finally replied and Steve had to bite his lip to keep the laugh in. 

“Remind me of that next time some dame leans over for a thank you,” Bucky grumbled, spinning around on his polished heel. Which was when he finally glanced up, eyes lighting on the watcher just inside the doorway. 

“Steve!” Buck threw down his rag, nearly tripping over the edge of the counter as he ran over to greet him, skidding to a stop just before he crashed into Steve with this amazingly wide smile on his face, practically bouncing.

If they were younger, Bucky’d scoop him into his arms, pick Steve up as he spun him around in a tight hug, only they were both in their mid-twenties now, so. Two warm hands reached out anyways, rubbing up and down Steve’s biceps as Bucky leaned back and looked him over.

Satisfied he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, a warm arm was thrown around his waist and Steve had to sit down his bag to not trip as Bucky lead him over to the barstools at the counter. 

“How was your trip? Can I get you a coffee?”

His enthusiasm was heart-warming in the least and Steve laughed, letting Bucky scoot one of the stools back a few inches. “You know that doesn't do anything for me anymore.” 

“Me either,” he muttered, but before Steve could inquire what that meant he was being shoved down into a chair, barely having time to unbutton his suit coat before it got smooshed. Bucky shrugged it off his shoulders anyways, sliding the suit from Steve’s arms and tossing it onto the next seat over. “But it's for the principle of the thing.” 

Then Bucky planted his hand on the corner of the shiny surface and swung in a wide circle around the edge of the counter, scooping up the coffee pot and a mug like it was some kind of dance, like he was in a musical on stage or something, sliding the mug across the surface to land right in front of Steve and he _had_ to be practicing that, because that was honestly impressive as hell and no _wonder_ he was getting kisses for tips. 

“So.” Bucky propped his elbows on the counter and his chin in his hands, kicking up a foot and tapping it as he glanced up at Steve with a pretty smile beneath the light blue waiter’s cap. “Tell me about Virginia.”

There was still a cacophony of clanking dishes in the kitchen, Angie was washing things, and he figured the sounds were too loud for her to overhear top secret info. So he took a sip of the coffee, shrugging as he sat it back down. 

“Wasn't that eventful. We interrogated one of the scientists--”

“Interrogated interrogated?” Bucky had this look on his face and Steve got another rush of glad relief that he hadn’t been there when Thompson walked out with bloody hands. 

“I don't know.” Which wasn’t a lie, he’d never had _confirmation_. And if there were a few details he left out in order not to haunt Bucky, then so be it. “There's this one... this one guy on the team that's apparently pretty skilled in that kind of interrogation but I don't know if it ever got to that. The rest of us waited in the hallway and he was back out in five with the locations of where they've been shipping things.”

“You guys already tracked down all the bases for this weird project?”

"No, that's the thing," Steve slid his coffee back a few inches, crossing his arms over the counter and leaning forward in his official information-relaying stance. "They ship 'em to these big cities, then cars and trains and planes take them from there. But it gives us a place to start, which is great."

Bucky leaned back, turning around slowly to put the coffee pot on its shelf again, all the theatrics drained. He busied himself with something, back still to Steve as the next question came, only half the enthusiasm of his others. "So you're gonna be gone quite a bit now, then?" 

"Not that often. There's a lot of other agents on this; they're not sending our team over until we get a confirmed hit for a base." 

Bucky visibly relaxed and Steve took a sip of coffee to hide his amused smile. "Okay. Good. I want you bein' careful, you hear?" 

He turned back around, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall, half-serious scolding face on his features. "It's just that I don't have your six anymore. So you gotta make sure somebody watches your back."

Steve nodded, making sure not to let his expression slip up or else there'd be hell to pay. 

"Speakin'a which," Bucky glanced over his shoulder, peeking into the partition between the kitchen to see how many dishes were left to be cleaned so Steve couldn't see his expression when he spoke. "You make any new best friends yet?"

Steve made a face, because really, that was gonna be a concern? Ever? But Bucky missed his squinched up nose and furrowed eyebrows, instead grabbing onto the doorframe and swinging dramatically into the kitchen, leaning sideways like he was Gene Kelly in a rain dance. 

"You wanna close? Or I can." 

Steve still couldn't see Angie from this angle, but the enhanced hearing made her amused look visible in her words anyways. 

"Go walk the Captain home," she shooed and Bucky grinned wide, tipping an imaginary hat at her and getting a sighed huff in response. 

Then he came bounding back out, scooping up Steve's bags and undoing his apron, holding out Steve’s suit coat for him to shrug back into. It was silly, really, because he used to do that when Steve was small, said it was faster than watching Steve scramble around to get it over his shoulders. And it did help to have somebody hold it while he slipped his arms in. So he let Bucky help him into his coat, brushing imaginary lint off his shoulders while Steve buttoned the front middle loop and kept talking. 

“Well, there is one agent who's a pretty decent fellow. Daniel Sousa, he's a vet. Good friends with Peggy, sticks up for people.” 

Seemingly satisfied that Steve looked decent, Bucky started towards the door, Steve’s overnight bag still dangling from his arm as he hurried to catch up. 

“Good friends with Peggy? How good'a friends?” A big hand pushed against the metal bar of the rotating door and Steve had to take a little leap to not get smushed by the next piece of revolving glass. Bucky gave him a dry look that said _you couldda taken the next one_ but Steve ignored him and answered the question instead.

“I've been meaning to ask her, only we've been too busy to get the chance. If there is something though...he's a great guy.”

The sidewalk opened up, slightly slick underfoot and surprisingly empty for New York. It was that latency period between the Night Life and the daytime workers though, that strange hour gap when the streets were almost like any other city. The Big Apple never slept, but it did take a quick breathing pause around dusk. 

Bucky’s shoulder bumped into his, and it didn’t matter if it was purposeful or accidental, it was as regular to walk with bumping shoulders as it was to walk at all. "That so?” Buck pondered, lifting a hand to swipe aside the two curled strands of hair sloping over his forehead. Like they’d ever go back in his pomade now. “Hm. You found somebody to replace your sniper already?"

"I don't think he's the sniping type," Steve grinned, shoving his hands in his pockets and tipping his head a little to the side to flick ~~imaginary, fuck~~ bangs out of his face. Crystal eyes were studying his profile in the dim light of the sidewalks so Steve kept his gaze straight ahead, a half smile tucked in the corner of his mouth as he tacked on an overly-serious, “But yeah, definitely.”

An elbow found its way into his ribs and Steve made a noise of protest, bumping Bucky back with his hip, then he was getting full on shoved and they were lucky neither of them ended up getting arrested for fighting by the time they finally got back home. 

And crossing his eyes at Bucky in the bathroom mirror while they brushed their teeth (resulting in Bucky spitting toothpaste all over everything in his surprised laughter, which Steve made him clean up because that was disgusting), Steve decided maybe this apartment - maybe even this job - wouldn’t shape up to be too bad ‘a home after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just the funnest fic to write. 
> 
> The chapter title is from the song [Show Me How You Burlesque](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3APrqTKtcA).
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, all comments and kudos are super duper appreciated xx


	3. just hold on tight, you’re gonna take the town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Le promised plot-twist is not, unfortunately, in this chapter. But soon, we are getting there, I promise. 
> 
> In the meantime, there are actually warnings for this one (I promise the next one will be exceedingly fluffy, and this one isn't terrible but I'd rather over-warn than under!) 
> 
> Warnings for: asshole cat-caller harassers who don't do anything worse than shown in the show Agent Carter, but people are objectified and insulted with slurs and vulgar terms
> 
> Also, if you haven't read my other stucky fic, just so you know when underlined words pop up, it's a link to a song that's playing in the background while the scene is happening, and you might wanna let it play because it should line up!

“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest, raising one eyebrow at Steve. 

“B--”

“No, Rogers, I said no.”

“You’re not my mom--”

“She’s rolling in her grave at your stupidity, and probably’d bake me a damn cake for stopping you, so. No.” 

“Fine!” Steve threw up his hands and grabbed his jacket off the hook by the door, swinging through and letting it slam behind him. 

At least he wasn’t gonna go be stupid. 

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to ward off the headache as he searched for wherever the fuck his apron went.

 

“Yes, I do believe he’s made quite the difference.” Peggy locked her room door behind her and Angie tapped her foot on the floor as she waited, propped against the wall. 

“Y’know, I haven’t had the slightest bit of ennui at work lately. Especially now that I have three people to look forward to seein’?” 

The door finally locked properly and Peggy turned her pretty smile in Angie’s direction. 

“I do hope you still look forward to seeing me the most,” that adorable English accent said and Angie smiled wide, looping her arm through Peggy’s as they started down the sloping hallways of the Griffith. 

“Don’t be ridiculous English, no number of pretty waiters or sunny Captains could compare to our morning conversations.” 

Their heels clicked in time as Peggy pushed open the stairwell door, and at least by walking Peggy halfway to work she got the vigorous workout of the day. Angie was good in heels, but Peggy was damn somethin’ else in them. Although really, she’d probably be damn somethin’ else in anything she wore. 

“Well I’m glad to hear my ritual of daily pie is paying off in some way. Because it definitely isn’t my shape.” Peggy’s ringing laugh twinkled for a moment and Angie had to shove her for that comment, because she wasn’t sure she’d seen anyone with a shape as nice as Peg’s. 

“Oh shut up, Peg. I’d kill for your shape, and that’s sayin’ something.”

“Yes, yes it is.” 

Another bright smile and Angie could already tell, today was gonna turn out to be a great day.

 

“Hey Rogers, how’s your girl doin’? She glad you get home safe?” Thompson called from across the lobby and Steve bristled, forcing a smile onto his face as he turned around and waited for Jack to catch up. 

“Still don’t see why you think it’s your business,” he offered congenially and Jack waved his hand like Steve was just playing, like this was some game and they were really friends underneath the bickering when the definitely _weren’t_ and that asshole move--

“You know me, just checkin’ in on our favorite stagegirl. Your dame let you wear her tights?” Jack spun around and held open the stairwell door for Steve, and it wasn’t like he was gonna deny the challenge of scaling all those steps instead of taking the elevator. 

“Didn’t need to, I’ve got my own.” The stairwell door slammed shut behind them and Jack raised an eyebrow suspiciously, unable to tell if Steve was joking or not. 

He wasn’t, but Jack and his pretty golden swoop of hair didn’t need to know that.

“How bout you, your girl happy to see you?” Steve pressed, taking the railing in one hand and switching his briefcase to the other. Jack took the other railing and they started up the stairs in tandem and Steve forced himself to go normal speeds, he was _not_ going to let this turn into the childish kind of race. 

“Don’t have a girl, work’s too important,” Thompson shot back, and was he trying to go subtly faster than Steve up the stairs? He totally was. “Speaking of which, I’m to rest assured you’ll actually get something done while I’m gone?”

He glanced over and Thompson met his gaze, blue tie striking against his steely eyes. That was half the annoying thing about Thompson, he played the attractive blue-eyed blonde agent role so well and there was really only room for one of those in an office that small and Steve just felt so out of place all over again.

After the serum, he’d kind of gotten used to letting his skills, looks, and fame get him into places he needed to be, but around here it meant diddly-squat and he was stuck with being the awkward kid out, the way he’d been for the first twenty plus years of his life.

And laying the blame on Thompson and his charmer smile was real easy when he looked at Steve like shark food. 

“While you’re gone?” He repeated, because really, that might be the perfect opportunity to situate himself a real place in the SSR, especially if it was gonna be for a while. Or for good, he’d be definitely fine with that.

“It’s my lucky day off,” Thompson smiled and Steve cursed internally, because really, just one day? But one day was better than none. “I’ve just gotta drop off this file for Duley and I’m outta here.” 

“Oh we’ll all lament the loss,” Steve said with as much sarcasm as he could muster without getting called out on it, then he decided _fuck it_ and pushed ahead, taking the last set of stairs up twice as fast and swinging open the door at the top. And suddenly sparked with an idea, held it open wide and waited patiently for Thompson to climb the rest of the stairs. 

He glared openly at Steve as he passed through the open door and if Steve had a hat, he’d tip it at Thompson with a _good’ay ma’am_ , but he unfortunately didn’t have the accessory to pull it off. Instead he just gave Jack a wide smile and a wide berth as he followed him into the office and plotted what great thing he’d get to do now that Thompson would be gone all day.

 

"Brooklyn!! You better not be eatin' that rhubarb!" 

"Aw, c'mon Ang. How're we spos'd to recommend dishes if we ain't ever tried 'em?"

"Make somethin' up." She swept past him to flip the sign to _open_ , spinning back around with a hand on her hip and that look on her face. 

"Not everybody's a good an actress as you," Bucky pointed out, but Angie just rolled her eyes and flipped her hair with a hand as she huffed off with a final very-serious point at the rhubarb pie he was maybe sampling. 

In all fairness, it was yesterday's pie anyways. He figured better his mouth than the trash, right? Growin' up in the '30s and working to feed two mouths always made him conservative, got all strange feelin' dumping good food in the trash for no reason. 

"Hey, they got Charlotte Russe anywhere around here?" Bucky straightened up, licking the last of the pie off his fingers and sliding the plate into the sink. 

"Closest place for that is in Brooklyn," another voice inputted and Bucky leaned out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. 

"Peg! What can I do you for?" He glanced down, checking the time on his watch (a little) worriedly. "Shouldn't you be gettin' to work?" 

Angie peeked out of the kitchen behind him and Peggy gave her a little wave and a smile she hid with a duck of her head, pretending to look for something in her purse. Angie bounced on her toes and headed back in for the dishes, humming a cheery song to herself. Peggy followed the movement until she was gone, then quickly darted her eyes back to Bucky, pursing her lips like she hadn’t been smiling like an idiot a second earlier.

He was just glad she was happy, having a friend like Ang. 

"The boys at the office aren't the most observant, they won't notice if I'm a quarter after checking in." Peg waved a dismissive hand and Bucky clicked his tongue because really, how do you look over _Peggy fucking Carter_ , but whatever, he wasn't an SSR agent. "I promised Steve I'd deliver a message."

"Oh?" Well, now that was worth missing work for. He wiped his hands on his apron, straightening his hat as he stepped out of the kitchen proper, leaned on the counter with an eyebrow raised. 

"Yes, he was wondering if you were free for lunch? Apparently he's got someone at the office he'd like you to meet. I'm not quite sure who, since obviously the most interesting person there is me, but. There's a cafe in the lobby at the phone company." 

She had that mischievous charming smile on and Bucky rolled his eyes at her, straightening out a tray of napkins. 

“What, he sick of diner pie already? Why doesn’t he bring his friend down here?" Peggy shrugged and Bucky sighed, giving her the _roger that_ hand signal and grumbling under his breath as she started for the door. "The walk’s not _that_ far,” Bucky complained to himself, which was totally true. 

Unless walking doesn’t come as easy to you as other people. 

He strolled into the SSR at lunchtime, having stopped home first because if he was going for an official meeting, odds are Steve wouldn't want him in his diner uniform. So changing into slacks and buttondown it was. He didn't wanna come across as a pompous asshole either, so he borrowed Steve's brown leather jacket instead of a suit top, checked the swoop of his pomade in the mirror, and headed out for the infamous "phone company." 

The cafe downstairs looked like it was for the actual phone company workers, not as much a place he'd picture SSR agents to eat. Then again, Steve was in some corner of the diner sketching away in his notebook most lunchtimes, and Peg was at the diner even more often than he was, so. Who was Bucky to judge where anybody ate? 

Especially if it meant he wasn't the one serving for once. 

"Bucky!" Steve called across the cafe, waving a big hand in the air like Bucky was somehow gonna miss the giant blonde ray of sunshine now that he'd shot over six foot. Although, in fairness, he'd never missed Steve when he'd been four foot tall instead. It was a special talent of his, always being able to find the tiny blonde in the crowd, like his eyes trained themselves specifically for that. Not that he wouldn't worry the fuck about him in the meantime, but. 

"Stevie," he greeted back, grinning at the slight twitch of embarrassment, but hey, what kinda guy would Steve's friend be if he didn't get a kick outta Captain America goin' by a name like Stevie. Speaking of which-- 

Bucky stuck out his hand, nodding at the unfamiliar face beside Steve's. "Bucky Barnes. Always good to meet a friend of Steve's, it was a pretty exclusive club of one for quite some time." 

Steve reached out to smack his shoulder before realizing it was his left and thankfully thinking better of it. Bucky dodged anyways, widening his grin and Steve's friend stood - pushed himself wobbly to his feet, reached over the table and shook Bucky's hand. 

"Daniel Sousa." He gave a smile with his name and Bucky decided instantly that he liked him. The dark hair was swooped to the side, very professional suit and an easy sincerity on his face that didn't fit the profession at all. "And it's good to finally put a real-life face to the name." 

Bucky cocked his head in confusion, pausing in his drawback from the handshake. 

"Rogers' sketches bear quite a resemblance," Sousa clarified and Bucky's eyebrows shot up, gesturing Daniel to sit as he pulled up a chair of his own and leaned over the table to stage-whisper at Steve. 

"You been drawin' me?" 

"Shut up, I've only been drawing you for decades, it's all I know how to draw anymore.” Steve glared at him crossly and Bucky’s eyebrows shot up, leaning back in his chair with an amused smile at Daniel. 

“Not sure whether to be flattered or offended.” 

“Maybe both?” Sousa offered and Steve rolled his eyes at both of them. 

“Now that that embarrassing ordeal’s over, what do you fellas want to eat? I can take up the order.”

Sousa gratefully gave his and Bucky waved Steve off with an “you know what I like.” As soon as the blonde head was outta earshot, Daniel cocked his head in Steve’s direction, soft smile on his face and a touch of curiosity in his features.

“So you two have known each other quite some time, then?”

“Our whole lives,” Bucky nodded, spinning the salt shaker distractedly and Sousa gave a low whistle. “Been watchin’ out for that troublemaker as long as I can remember.”

“Troublemaker?” The innocent tilt of Sousa’s head spoke wonders - he was the kind of guy to see the best in people, but curious enough to find out the not-so-great parts too. And it spoke wonders of Steve too, because if this was his new friend at the office, he must’ve been keeping his nose clean at work. 

Which was great, Stevie not getting into trouble was a damn miracle, but. He highly doubted it’d last forever. Which meant that as the new friend (and he could tell, quite fairly new at that) Sousa would get dragged into it sooner or later.

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough. He spent most of the younger years getting beat up in alleyways. Which means I spent most of mine pulling him out. And then that pattern went right on and continued in the war.” He rollled a hand in exaggeration and Sousa nodded, a quick flash of a smile before he leaned both arms on the table, that unkillable curiosity shining through.

“You two fought together?”

“Yes, thank god. I can’t imagine him being over there without me. I’d say it was a little disorienting to have him as _my_ CO, but honestly I think there was a part of me that always saw that coming.” 

A huff of a laugh and Daniel nodded, leaning back to watch Steve weave through crowds from across the cafe. “He’s the leading type.” 

Admiration there, as well as a bit of unfamiliarity. Bucky could definitely respect him for that. It felt like they didn’t really know each other all that well yet, which meant that Steve was introducing him to his friends right off the bat, eager to prove himself, probably. In all fairness, Sousa was kinda the first friend Steve’d ever made on his own. 

Although, by the sound of it, there was a chance they’d only become friends because he was _Peggy’s_ friend, but Bucky’d take wins wherever they could get them. And with a fella like Sousa, it seemed to definitely be a win. 

“You can say that again.You serve too?” Bucky drummed his fingers on the table and Daniel glanced over with his eyebrows raised. 

“I’d hope so, otherwise I’d like my leg back.” 

The expression and delivery was perfect, startling a snort out of Bucky that turned into a full-on laugh, tipping his head back and clutching an arm over his stomach. Daniel was shaking his head in amusement when Steve finally returned with their lunches, laying the trays on the table, pointing at Bucky and mouthing _what’s wrong with him?_ towards Sousa.

Daniel shrugged amiably and Bucky forced his laughter to die down, breathy huffs still escaping as he waved a hand of thanks at Steve and pulled his lunch closer. 

“You two ganged up on me disastrously fast.” Steve pulled an unimpressed face and then Bucky was laughing again, the pout impossible to take seriously. And at second glance, Daniel huffed softly too, amused as he was. Steve sighed and started in on his sandwich, pretending to ignore them both. 

Bucky decided in that moment they were all going to be wonderful friends. He was quite looking forward to the idea of having someone else to gang up on Steve with. Not to mention that the occasional dry humor and curious respect of Daniel Sousa made him the kind of person Bucky could definitely get on board with as a good friend for Steve.

Not that he had to approve of Steve’s friends, but. That’s kinda what this felt like. A little. Like Steve wanted his approval. Catching Steve’s eye across the table halfway through their sandwiches, Bucky gave him a quick smile and a small nod, so just in case it was about that, Steve knew exactly where he stood.

And he made sure Daniel knew the same, clapping him on the shoulder and leaning over to stage-whisper to keep an eye on Steve for him. Steve swatted at his arm and Bucky rolled his eyes, then he shook Daniel’s hand once more and they parted ways with plans to meet again the next day they all three had off. 

Hopefully, by that time, Steve’d still be staying out of trouble. 

 

“Well if it isn’t my favorite well-dressed Brit,” an extorted voice echoed as Peggy stepped cautiously into the lab, letting the door swing shut behind her. A head popped up from a strange twisting golden bell, followed by crisp-suited shoulders and a wry smile. “It’s a new kind of phonograph, whaddu you think?”

“I think it’s rather large,” Peggy commented, setting her purse down on the closest table that didn’t look to hold explosives of some kind. “Is it functional? Or quite necessary?”

“Not many inventions are necessary, persay, but functional? Hell yes.” A few clanks and bangs, then a sliding staricase expanded and Howard’s hundred dollar heels clicked down the metal in that purposed brisk walk of his.

Peggy poked something on the table while she waited for him to cross the room. It hissed and released a puff of steam, but seemed rather useless otherwise. Unnecessary, she could agree with for sure. 

Then Howard was spreading his arms wide, moustache quirked as sideways as his smile.

“Peg!” She sighed exaggeratedly, but let Howard pull her into a quick hug, wide grin furrowing into suspicion as he drew back and placed both his gloved hands on her upper arms, peering around her shoulders. “Where are you hiding Golden Boy? Don’t tell me you came to visit without the Captain.”

She cocked one eyebrow, shaking free of Howard’s grip, although he’d already let go to pick up the steaming object on the table. It instantly fell quiet in his hands and Peggy tipped her head in curiosity. "Funny, I'd've assumed you thought _you_ were the golden boy." 

"Oh no,” Howard waved off, like it was a terribly absurd idea. With his ego though, it wasn’t all that irrational. Which he was happy to prove with a lift of his head and another winning smile. “Genius, yes, definitely. But Steve's the one with sunshine pulsing through his veins." He sat down the strange steaming invention and picked up another, something with screws and twisting metal, pondering face on as he tapped its side. "I wonder if that's one of the missing ingredients, maybe Erskine found a way to bottle sunlight and injected it into Rogers--"

"I hate to break it to you Howard, but he was just as beautifully bright before he transformed in your machine." Peggy gave the invention a suspicious look as Howard suddenly pointed it towards her with an arching eyebrow.

"That's right, you and he were…” Howard made the strangest clicking sound with his tongue that sounded something like a typewriter reloading and Peggy rolled her eyes hard enough to give Barnes a run for his money. Stark ignored the eyeroll, wiggling one of the screws on the side and talking right to the metal. "You still carrying that torch?" 

"I do no such thing.” Peggy planted one hand solidly on her hip in protest. Howard glanced up, giving her that _’reaaalllyy?’_ face of sass that had him so famous in the media. 

"Oh Peg, you couldn't pretend not to love Steve if you tried." 

"And neither could you,” she pointed out, to which Howard made a sound and tipped his head in agreement. As much as they all teased each other, it was quite true. Steve Rogers wasn’t a man you could let slip your mind, he wasn’t the kind of friend you could give half your heart to. 

Howard was still tinkering with the invention, so Peggy tapped her foot thoughtfully and elaborated for the sake of saying it aloud, because no one would ever say it enough. "Or the random woman on the street he helped the other day, or the man who works in the coffee shop downtown. Everyone who's ever met him has loved him.” 

In fact, it was nearly impossible to imagine someone not liking Steve. Although, actually, “Except Thompson," she added pensively. 

"Who the hell’s Thompson? He one of Hydra’s experiments?" Howard’s gaze shot up from the experiment, and wasn’t it just fitting that everyone assumed the only people who could hate Steve had to be evil enough to be Hydra?

"No, no. Just a pompous asshole at the office," she waved off. However, speaking of Hydra experiments... "But unfortunately, this isn’t a social call. I have something for you." 

She scooped her purse back off the table, digging through the front pocket until her fingers closed around the familiar slip of paper, drawing it out and extending it towards Howard’s occupied hands. "A chemical formula." 

He raised his eyebrows in curiosity, setting down the invention to take the paper and unfold it, studying the letters with furrowed eyebrows. 

"I don't have their order or corresponding numbers, but do you recognize it?"

"It's...nothing like I've ever seen. At first I thought maybe adrenaline, but. That's definitely not…” He looked up, snapping the paper once in the air. “Where'd you get this?"

She’d been afraid he’d ask that. Telling Howard Stark she was conducting a solo private investigation using SSR resources and beating up bad guys in her spare time was probably not the best idea. Instead she gave him a winning smile and straightened a pleat in her green dress.

"How about I tell you after you manage to crack it?"

Howard gave her a suspicious face but shrugged, looking back down at the letters. "Sure. Whatever works Peg, you and your top secret nonsense." He swept an arm across another lab table, pushing papers to fly towards the floor and dragging a microscope and a few containers of liquids into the center, chatting as he set up his lab. "I’m sure I’m half to blame anyways. Spent years in the war with a genius scientist, it kind of raises the standard of quality work. Kids at the SSR not living up to your scientific expectations?"

Her lips pressed into a thin smile, thinking of how she could never trust the SSR with something as important as this case. 

"Something like that." 

Howard had already grabbed a notepad and was jotting down something, probably possible number combinations to go with the different periodic elements. Set into his science mode, didn’t even bother looking up as he started drawing drops out of a clear beaker. "I'll crack away at this, give you a call when I've got something. Jarvis can show you out." 

She nodded, positioning her purse on her arm and calling out a sincere thank you that Howard waved off exaggeratedly, peering into the microscope like he’d found the most fascinating thing in the world. 

Stark’s butler held open the lab door, giving her a nod as she passed through. 

“Mr. Jarvis,” she greeted, falling into step beside him. 

“Miss Carter. And you’ve been doing well, I trust?”

“Quite. I can say it’s much nicer working at the SSR when I have an ally three desks over.”

“Ah, Captain Rogers. He’s a good ally to have. Is he involved in this chemical-formula-project as well?”

Peggy hesitated, glancing over at Jarvis before sighing and looking down at her heels. “I’ve considered bringing him in, but. I think it’s much too early. It’s a...persay… _unauthorized_ project.”

One of Jarvis’s eyebrows shot up and Peggy stuck her tongue in her cheek, tilting her head so her curls bounced innocently over her shoulders. 

“And you think Captain Rogers would disapprove,” Jarvis clarified. Peggy almost laughed, because as moral as Steve was, those all went out the window when certain people were involved. She managed to rein it into a bright smile instead, pausing as Jarvis opened the front door.

“Actually, I think quite the opposite. He’d be much too invested in it.”

“Is that so? This project is sounding more and more fascinating by the minute. Does it have a name?” 

She slid her hand over the grand entrance railing, taking the stone steps down slowly enough for Jarvis to keep up. 

“I suppose I’ve been referring to it as the Italy project in my head.” She reached the car door and Jarvis knew better than to open the backdoor for her, letting her slide into the passenger seat as he walked around to the driver’s. 

“Well Miss Carter,” he said, sticking the keys in the ignition and looking over at her with a tip of his hat and a small smile. “If you need any help with Project Italy, I’m just a phone call away.” 

“So long as it’s before nine,” Peggy clarified, and Jarvis cracked a smile, pulling the car forward into the street. 

“As long as it’s before nine.”

 

She was right about Steve’s nosiness, that much was for sure. She’d barely made it to her desk before a chair was wheeled up right next to hers and two offended shoes crossed on the edge of her little wooden space. 

“You’ve been gone,” Steve observed with a tip of his head over the back of his chair. She pinned him with a look and debated gesturing at his feet. He’d move them if she wanted him too, but it didn’t look as though anyone who might say anything were around, so she let him be. 

“I have,” she agreed, scooting a file free from under Steve’s ankle and flipping it open uselessly. 

“Daniel and I had lunch with Bucky, I was gonna invite you to join.”

“Well my, that sounds like an interesting crowd. They get along?”

“Annoyingly well,” Steve pouted and Peggy looked up from the file in amusement. 

“Is someone a bit jealous?” she teased and Steve raised an unimpressed eyebrow, adjusting his suspenders self-consciously.

“Actually, I’ve been _meaning_ to ask you only you’re _never_ around,” a glare that was too much like a vaguely annoyed puppy to take seriously and Peggy had to roll her lips in to keep from laughing at him. “ - but speaking of jealousy and Daniel…you two have a thing?”

A thing. She wasn’t sure what exactly that all implied - they were friends, he was sweet. Kind. Funny. Trustworthy. It’d probably be quite lovely to spend more time with him. 

But the look Steve was giving her, the _is it a crush?_ look that was recognizably straight out of primary school, she wasn’t sure that was the right kind of look for Daniel Sousa. She’d been a bit too busy lately to worry anyway, between her work, the solo project on the side, her growing friendship with Angie.

She hadn’t seen Angie since this morning. Hopefully her day was going as well as it had before they parted ways. She was getting rather used to talking to Angie in the mornings. 

“Peg? You do, don’t you?”

“Hmm?” She snapped out of her thoughts to find Steve giving her that openly triumphant look. 

“You just had the dreamiest look on your face. You _are_ interested.” 

A dreamy look on her face? Just now? That couldn’t be right. She huffed and straightened the papers on her desk, avoiding Steve’s studious gaze as she busied her hands.

“I don’t know if I’d say _that_. Honestly, there hasn’t been much time to develop or decipher feelings of that sort, I’ve been quite wickedly busy with work.”

“I’d say.” Steve tipped his chair back further, stretching out his long arms with the attentative cautiousness that revealed itself sometimes, the only reminder left of how new this body was for him. “What’s been goin’ on with you lately? You’ve been busier than me, Peg, and while that wouldn’t be surprising normally, the assholes in this office--”

“Rogers!” 

A shout from across the room and both their heads shot up, Steve straightening what he could with his ankles crossed on Peggy’s desk. 

“You feel like contributing to the team anytime soon? Or do you find it necessary to flirt your way through the work day?” Thompson stalked past them into Duley’s office and Steve cursed under his breath, lifting his feet off Peggy’s desk with a nasty glare towards the slamming door. 

“Speaking of assholes, he was supposed to be gone today.” A heavy sigh and Steve’s fingers carefully smoothed out his shirt, straightened his suspenders and the pressed side-seam of his pants. “Sorry to get you called out like that, Peg.” 

“It’s no worry, I’d probably get worse if you weren’t here.” She tapped a pencil eraser on her desk a few times, both of them looking towards the office door where Thompson had disappeared to. Steve was tense as taut wire beside her, shoulders drawn and muscles clenched. She’d never quite liked Thompson either, but. “What’ve you two got against each other? I understand he’s a misogynistic bastard, but he’s a dedicated worker, understands his job. I’d assume that’d make you two friends, not enemies.”

“Well, considering most fellas in this office are misogynistic bastards - actually, most fellas I know, spent half my childhood getting beat up by them - I can’t discriminate with that as much as I’d like to. But I don’t know what his problem is, just that he’s got one and hell if I ain’t gonna fight back.” 

“It’s not exactly a fight,” Peggy pointed out, but Steve was already pedaling his feet on the tiles to wheel himself back to his desk, glare set on the office doors the whole time. God _knows_ what that face was planning. “Great talk!” she waved across the space between them and Steve gave her a quick smile and nod before glancing at the door once more and pulling out a file on his desk. 

Men. She’d never understand them. 

 

There were a few in particular that were worse than others, some of which unfortunately frequented the diner. 

Steve was sitting innocently in his favorite booth - it had the best view of both the counter, kitchen, and other patrons, which meant that he could watch Bucky bustle his way around the diner. He was an incredible waiter, which wasn’t surprising in the least. As much as he pretended nonchalance on everything in the world, he was damn dedicated once he set his mind to something. 

He darkened a line on his paper, curving the swoop of Angie’s hair darker. He still hadn’t been able to nail her face shape, but between all the breakfasts and lunches he’d eaten in here as of late, he’d get it eventually. 

The drawing was halfway done, in the middle of sketching out her apron (easy, because it matched Bucky’s) when it happened. His head was down at the time, so he didn’t see who said it, but the jeering sneer was unmistakable. 

“I knew diners had a tendency to hire the pretty ones, but you sure are something else.” A bark of laughter followed and Steve’s fingers tightened around his pencil. It was a demeaning comment, yes, but there was always a chance that Crystal - the other waitress - could be working, and she hated when people interferred with her customers. 

And if it was Ang the assholes were talking about, she always said she was tough enough to take care of herself. And he’d been listening, it’d only been words, he really couldn’t risk both his cover and Bucky getting pissed at him - not to mention the lives of whoever said it - by punching people over their big mouths anymore. 

If someone laid a hand on the waitresses, it’d be a different story. He wasn’t gonna let himself throw hits or take fights to the alley anymore because it wasn’t fair, but. He definitely could interfere. 

The diner passed in amiable chatter for the next few minutes, probably while the waitress prepared whatever dish the cat-callers ordered. 

Then came the sharp whistle as the same shoes from earlier clicked past and Steve grit his teeth, splintering the side of his pencil. He hated that. He could not _stand_ the wolf-whistles. 

But Bucky’d been yelling at him just yesterday morning, he couldn’t get into a fight today, he couldn’t afford the argument and disappointment over it.

Just so long as there wasn’t any grubby hands laid on the sweet girls who worked here--

“You aughta smack that perky little ass when our food gets here,” one of the cat-callers leaned over to the other and they both laughed. 

"Yeah, show 'em what a disgrace it is, working in a place like this? Parading around in a half-skirt?" 

"Exactly, makin' the rest of us uncomfortable as hell. We don't come in here to get served by that kind'a pretty."

Steve’s head shot up, eyes wide with shock, jaw dropped in offense because what _bastards_. And what the hell was their beef with waitresses wearing aprons? Or girls working in a diner in the first place? 

He sat down his pencil, watching across the room at the two losers propped at their table, leering over whoever their waitress was. He’d be out of his seat so fast if they hit Angie or Crystal, screw ignoring this. 

Just so long as he didn't hit anyone. He wouldn't, he couldn't. Even if they laid a hand on the girls, it'd ruin everything if he punched someone. Hell, the government might just lock him up for that, tuck him away for further scientific experimentation. Then he wouldn't be able to use the serum to save people anymore and even more people would get in trouble--

No. Even if it came to them getting physical, Steve could handle it civilly enough to keep both his life and theirs. 

Because couldn’t just _ignore_ , and surely Bucky’d understand?

Then the very man he’d been worrying about swung out of the kitchen, hand propped backwards with a tray atop, headed straight for the table with the assholes. 

Thank god, Bucky must’ve heard the commotion and decided to step in for whoever. It was a signature move, saving those poor girls from the bastards who thought they deserved to be taught something. As though they were doing anything wrong. 

But Bucky was taking care of it now, so Steve leaned back in his booth, forced himself to relax. He picked up the pencil again, smoothing out the splinter with his thumb as he watched the scene. Odds are Bucky wouldn't throw punches, but if he was sticking up for one of the girls Steve sure as hell wasn't gonna let him fight alone. 

"Thanks, sweetheart," one of the cat-callers jeered and Steve's head cocked in confusion. 

Bucky turned away from the table with his lips pursed tightly, then the other cat-caller leaned over and. And actually smacked Bucky's ass. 

His torso jolted, face shutting down in pissed resignation, then he was starting for the kitchen again with a brisk anger barely contained in his step. 

Steve didn't leap out of his booth because his brain wasn't even processing. It made zero sense, why would -- 

Everything they'd said, about wearing aprons and working at a diner being disgraceful? If you were a sexist pig who only went to slap the girls asses, then yes, having a male waiter had to be upsetting. Steve's never thought anything of Bucky's apron or the little hat other than that it was cute and--

They'd been talking about Bucky the whole time. 

It all made sense now, daring each other disgustingly, talking shit about the girly job and the half-skirt tied around his waist, how they hadn't come in for that kind'a pretty. 

And those bastards dehumanized him for their own pleasure simply because they weren't getting any in their sick twisted ways. 

Degrading Bucky to the same disgusting treatment they gave women and honestly, that was about as offensive as you could get. The assholes managed to degrade Bucky, dehumanize his body, and declare women as being an insult all in one. 

Bucky should definitely understand why Steve popped out of the booth. 

Unfortunately - or fortunately, the jury was still out - because of his newly acquired size, the cat-callers saw him coming. 

"Hey, man, what's _your_ problem?" One of them started, then Steve was dragging him out of his chair by a clenched hand in his collar and he didn't make much sound but for an indignant squawk. 

"My problem is assholes like you who sla--"

"Steve!" The shout from behind him was unmistakable and he grit his teeth at the tone but he wasn't going to drop the bastard back in his chair anytime soon. "Steve, put him down." 

"Oh look, the pretty waiter's boyfriend came to defend his honor," the other cat-caller cooed and Steve almost did drop the one asshole then, just so he could slug the other one's nose until it broke. 

"Shut up," he snarled, tightening his grip on the squirming one and shooting a death glare at the one who'd smacked his best friend's ass like he was property. "You have no goddamned right--" 

"Stevie, not here, _please_." Bucky's tone was heartbreaking, so desperate with the undertone of embarrassment and if Steve hadn't been here, if he hasn't said anything, Bucky would've just let it slide. And then these assholes could've shown up again, God knows how far they'd go to prove their point--

A warm hand closed around his arm and Steve shoved the guy back down on his chair with a soft yelp. Bucky was still holding Steve's arm and Steve was breathing heavy, fists clenching and unclenching as Bucky tried to pull him away and he was forced to plant his feet. 

"Aw, look, pretty waiter's got a leash on his boyfriend. You'd've thought it was the other way around with those pink cock-sucking lips. Made for way more than taking orders." 

Steve lunged but Bucky managed to catch his swing in the drawback, yanking Steve backwards away from the table. 

"Get the hell out!" He spat, struggling against Buck's hold on his wrists, a promise of severe injury on his face as he stared down the two bastards who were starting to shrink in their chairs, really dawning how pissed Steve was, the rage of the six foot two man finally sinking into their thick skulls. 

"Wouldn't wanna eat in the place of a couple'a queers anyways," one of them shot back as he stood and Steve got a swing that time, only Bucky barred an arm around his waist and whipped him to the side, leaving him to maul on open air. 

"Let's get the hell outta here, man," the other muttered, then they were starting for the door without leaving an ounce of cash behind for the meal but Steve could give a damn, he'd had about ten thousand reasons to punch them anyways. 

"And don't you dare come back!" He shouted at the revolving door as if slowly span on empty. 

Then Bucky was bundling and shoving him into the kitchen, getting a sharp look from Crystal as Steve stumbled over a pan, then she hurried into the diner to calm the rest of the patrons and take over Bucky's orders. If there were any left. 

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" Bucky shoved his chest and Steve's spine hit the wall with a dull thud. 

"The hell was _I_ thinking? You shouldn't have stopped me! That bastard sla--"

He started forward off the wall and Bucky shoved him back against it again. 

"I know what he did Steve, but people are assholes, there's nothing I can do about it. Besides, y'know, not _starting a fight in the middle of lunch hour._ "

"I couldn't stand idly by and watch him do that to you--"

"Steve, look. I work here, there are some downsides to the job sometimes, but I'll lose the job _entirely_ if you start a fight over me in the middle of the goddamned diner!" 

"How am I supposed to watch--"

"You're not. I'm fine. Now get your ass back to work before your lunch hour ends, we can't have both of us losing our jobs in one day." Bucky sighed and wiped a tired palm over his forehead, down the side of his face. Steve didn't move off the wall, just looking Bucky over and wondering how the hell he was gonna make Bucky realize he was better than this, better than sucking it up and taking dehumanizing crap from assholes with nothing better to do. 

" _Go_ ," Bucky repeated, taking Steve's wrist and dragging him towards the kitchen entrance. He shoved into the diner with another awkward trip, then Bucky was hurrying past him to grab dishes from tables and booths. "And you wonder why I get so upset about you wanting to lead an investigation on your own. You're a goddamned fireball, Steve." 

He scooped up the drawing pad and briefcase, leaving the splintered pencil and handing the rest to Steve hurriedly. "What would've happened if I hadn't been on your six?" Bucky asked, rhetorically, as he sped past Steve with another little shove towards the door. "You'd be in jail, that's goddamned what," he muttered to himself, grabbing a cloth from under the counter and shooing Steve closer to the door. 

"I don't wanna spend my evenings bailing your ass outta prison, get a damn grip on your hot head and make sure Sousa's got your back too because I swear, you're gonna give me gray hairs from worrying and I'm way too beautiful for that this young. Now go. _Go_." 

Steve pressed a hand numbly to the glass of the revolving door, Bucky's busy bustling still making a cacophony of sound behind him. He'd yelled, which was predictable. Brought up the thing about Steve leading his own investigation, which was also predictable given the fight they'd had about it yesterday. But the chatter and shoving Steve out the door, that was all nervousness. Discomfort.

Likely, he was shaken from getting his _ass slapped_ by shitty grubby sexist hands. And then called a queer. And what they'd said about his mouth...

A crumpling creak and Steve looked down in surprise at the handle of his briefcase. It had angry finger indentions now. Bucky may be wrong about a lot of things, but Steve did need to learn how to control his fists. 

He should've punched those bastards though. Personal or not. But honestly, it hit pretty personal to watch your best friend objectified like that. 

Forcing New York City air through his lungs, Steve at least managed to calm down enough by the time he got back to the office that no one asked what was wrong. He still broke three more pencils throughout the day anyways. 

 

 

“Marge! You got the lunch orders?” 

Peggy groaned, soft enough that Thompson wouldn’t hear as he pointed from the office door. Daniel glanced over his shoulder, catching Peggy’s eye and mouthing _who died and made him in charge?_

She cracked a smile, only thankfully Duley wasn’t dead, just out of town following a lead, which left Thompson in charge in the meantime. Which was also why he was called in yesterday, on his off day. Which made him crankier than usual, if that was possible. 

“Yes, oh man in charge, the sandwich orders are taped right there - ” she pointed for dramatic effect, any way to knock Jack down a peg or two, “ - to your door.”

Jack eyed the sheet, gave her a suspicious glance, and took the sheet off the glass. Then thankfully the door was closing again and Peggy sighed, slumping down moodily in her chair. 

“He who rules with an iron fist makes no friends,” Daniel commented, spinning his chair around all the way to face Peggy’s desk. She puffed out her cheeks and made a face at Thompson’s temporary office before leaning her head on her hand and looking at Sousa. 

“At least iron fists get things done. Sometimes. I feel like this case is moving _terribly_ slow.” 

Daniel huffed in agreement, leaning back against his desk and glancing around the room at the various agents sorting through mundane paperwork to find any sort of trace or lead on the route of shipments, the people involved, anything. 

“That it is. But you’ve seemed a little...stressed lately. Everything alright?” His sweet expression softened into a bit of worry and Peggy was torn between sighing, shouting, and smiling. 

Because it was quite comforting to know that there were _two_ boys who noticed her enough to care that she was running herself thin. And it was also infuriating that there were two boys who noticed her enough to care that she was running herself thin.

Although thankfully, Sousa only seemed to notice her mood change. It was Rogers who she really had to worry about, because he’d already picked up on her absences. Which were quite a bit harder to explain away. 

“Just a bit of drama with some friends, I’m afraid.” She gave him a smile, scooping up the latest coding she’d been doing and paperclipping them together. 

“Well. If you ever need anything, let me know.” Sousa’s expression was still soft, but not to the point of coddling or demeaning. Just genuine caring, and that was such a nice change in the world. “After all,” he added on with a very serious tip of his head. “Should anything happen to you, we can’t have our lunch orders passed off to some lesser agent.”

It startled a laugh out of her and then Daniel was smiling, giving her a nod as she grabbed her purse and tucked the file in her arms. 

“Well, lucky for us all, it looks like I’ve got a good group of friends.” She tapped his desk appreciatively as she passed by and Daniel waved congenially, watching her walk down the center aisle like she owned every step. 

There was something about Agent Peggy Carter that he couldn’t place. She was an incredible worker, dedicated, and he could only imagine how bright she must’ve shined during the war. It was a shame he couldn’t have known her then, when guys like Thompson weren’t crushing her talents in the name of the dresses she wore. 

Although, really? Daniel didn’t think that Thompson was _that_ bad. Maybe a little overeager at times, and he never approved of the rudeness towards Carter, but underneath the asshole facade, he was almost a good guy. 

Or maybe Daniel was really just the most patient person on the planet, as he always used to get told. 

“What’re you doin’, Sousa?” A bright red tie swung into his peripherals and Daniel glanced up just as Thompson looked down, bent with his hands planted on the edge of the desk as he scanned over the pictures littering Daniel’s desk. “You’ve been working all night on the Russian case?”

“A bit. Look, you see that picture there, the boxes they’ve got lined up in the shadows?” He pointed and Jack followed his finger, scanning the same numbers and letters printed on the side of the pictured shipment crates that Daniel’d been studying for a few hours.

“At first I thought it was some regular shipment code, just the generic thing they stamp on shipment crates. But see, those only have letters stamped from A-H. And that one, the one on the bottom? It’s got an S in the combination.” 

Jack leaned down further, tie brushing the desk as he studied the picture up close. “You sure that’s an S? It looks like it could be an 8 to me.”

“No, see, I looked into that.” Daniel grabbed another one of the papers, scooting it out from underneath and spreading it flat for Thompson to see. “The 8’s are the spray-on kind, which means they can’t have that bar there, because that’s where the film is held. See? Which means that letter’s definitely an S.”

“So maybe it is,” Jack agreed, picking the paper up and straightening, holding it into the light better. “But what of it? It could be a simple misprint. Doesn’t mean that there’s suddenly some code to these shipment crates.” 

“But it could--”

“We’ve got people chasing down family lines of Russian descendents just to find connections between the few names we’ve got, people cracking code in Cyrillic right and left, and you’re hung up on some spray painted numbers on a crate?”

Thompson tossed the picture down haphazardly, sliding across the desk and dislodging all the others. Daniel pursed his lips and shuffled the papers again, finding the one he’d been writing on when Jack first showed up, holding it up to him with patience and a smidgen of hope. 

“If it wasn’t nothing, then why would the numbers and letters on those two boxes be the same? Shipping crates have to be labeled different. Not to mention that here, post-shipment?” Another photograph to hand upwards, waiting in trepidation as Jack looked them over. “The serials are all painted over. Big black line of thick paint, like they didn’t want anyone to know what they’d been before they dropped the boxes in the trash. That can’t be nothing.”

“You know...you may actually be onto something here, Sousa.” Jack actually held out the photos this time, waiting for Daniel to take them back. “Not saying I’d bet on you in a race anytime soon, but. It’s not half bad. Let me know if you find something more exciting than an outta place letter.”

A single clap on the shoulder and Thompson threw his jacket over his shoulder, giving Daniel a nod as he slipped the hat over his head and started for the door too.

 

“Angie, my darling, where areeee yooou?” Bucky sang, bursting through the back entrance to the kitchen with the shipment crates for tomorrow’s menu. 

“Your voice ain’t half bad, Brooklyn. Wanna come help me set up these pies before we close?” 

He followed the sound of her voice to the back counter, where the various pies were laid out across the counter, still in their packaging. 

“Haven’t we got anything new? We should do a weekly special, maybe Charlotte Russe or something. It’s way better than rhubarb.” He sat down the crates on the shelf, taking a few steps running start to slid across the concrete floors and catch himself on the counter next to Angie, checking her with his hip. 

“Well none of us know how to bake worth a dime--”

“I can,” Bucky offered, leaning on the counter and tilting his head. “They’re real easy to make. I can teach you, if you want?”

“How’s a fella like you learn to cook?” Angie asked curiously, following him into the pantry as he grabbed a handful of boxes and scraps to use for ingredients.

“Stevie was sick all the time, it wasn’t like he was gonna stand at a stove to make things. I mean, he ended up learning eventually ‘cause I worked so much I didn’t get home ‘til late, but for a while I was the one making the meals for the Rogers household. Steve’s ma taught me from the time I was a little thing.” 

He laid out the boxes on the counter, opening a few and peering inside at the ingredients they had to chose from. “Can you grab a bowl off the rack? And a couple’a spoons? See, Steve’s ma worked the night shift most often, sometimes 18 hour shifts if she had to. The damned economic depression made drugs harder to find than ever and it cost most her salary just keepin’ Steve alive. So I learned how to cook, made Sarah dinner most days too, left it wrapped on the windowsill if it was cold so it’d keep til she got home.”

“Wow. You really are somethin’ else, Barnes.” Angie took the egg he handed her and cracked it into the bowl. He shrugged, opening a cabinet to see what kinds of jams they had from the pancakes they served for breakfast. Different flavored Charlotte Russe, that'd be a kick. 

“We don’t sell angel food cake, do we?”

“Nope.”

“Alright, we’ll make that ourselves then.” 

“You sure you wanna put that much work into this?” She looked up from where she was beating the egg and milk together and Bucky gave her a smile, reaching up on his tiptoes to turn on the radio. 

“We’ll make a night of it. It’ll be fun to sell, I think. They’re popular as hell over in Brooklyn, and who doesn’t want a sidewalk special every now and then? I’ll bet you we raise revenue on this alone.” 

“We’re doin’ that plenty with your charmer skills, y’know.” She reached over him for a spoon and Bucky hummed noncommittally, forcibly not thinking about how said charmer skills had gotten him - and more importantly Steve - into trouble earlier. It wasn’t his fault persay, he was just being nice to the customers as always, but assholes are assholes and he really hadn’t been interested in causing a scene. 

Especially knowing that Steve had been sitting in his regular booth. Because he’d figured something bad would happen if a scene came out of it and would you look at that, he’d been right. If Stevie wasn’t so damn observant, the whole thing could’ve slid under the table, no questions or worries or _fights_. Idiot. 

Bucky sighed, straightening his apron and turning the radio up a notch higher, cracking eggs next to Angie and humming dramatically to the song’s intro. She gave him a disbelieving squinched-nose look and Bucky raised his eyebrows in offense. 

And promptly started singing along with Lori Lynner.

“Take a look at what I’ve found, it’s exciiiiting. Take a look at that, I can’t believe my eyeees,” he opened his mouth wide on the long notes and Angie was smiling and shaking her head in no time. 

He bumped his hip against hers, whipping the eggs into shape in time to the beat. “And sittin’ right before you, such a wonderful surprise.” 

“Is there anything you’re not good at?” Angie shook her head in wonder, hip-checking him right back and Bucky placed a dramatic hand over his heart. 

“Well no, ma’am. Except apparently gettin’ the dames to understand I just ain’t interested.” He wiped an imaginary lipstick smudge off his cheek and Angie’s eyes widened in mock-shock, pointing at his other cheek with a hand over her mouth.

“You _missed_ a spot, oh irresistible Bucky Barnes!”

“Yeah, yeah, you say that now, but you’re not the one who’s gotta wipe lipstick off your cheek every damned day.”

“Wouldn’t mind if I was,” Angie huffed under breath, looking back down at her silver bowl and measuring in a careful spoonful of sugar.

“What?” Bucky asked, because he had to have heard that wrong. 

“Nothin’. It just ain’t fair you can sing, I’ve been lookin’ for a gig for something on stage as long as I can remember and no one’s hirin’ it seems. Everybody’s getting back into dual acts and the solo girls aren’t finding any work at _all_.”

“It’s a bleedin’ shame, cause you’re amazing, Ang.” He said it sincerely as he knew how and she looked up, twinkle in her eyes and a little smile at one corner of her mouth. 

“Thanks, Bucky. You sure are real sweet. I bet you wouldn’t have the slightest bit of trouble getting into--”

She froze, suddenly looking between the radio and back at Bucky again. “Brooklyn…”

“Yes?”

“Will you do a double act with me?”

“A _what_?”

“Oh c’mon, like you’re scared of anything.”

“I can’t-- I don’t know how to _sing_ or _act_. Steve’s the stageboy, not me.”

“It’s not that hard! Here, sing with me, I’ll show you. Simple duet, you take one line I’ll take the next. For me?” She gave him these big beautiful blue-gold eyes and it wasn’t like he could turn _down_ that look. 

“Fine, you start.” He crossed his arms over his chest and Angie lifted her stirring spoon as a microphone, raising one shoulder and stepping back into the open part of the kitchen with a beckoning finger.

“Take a look at everything right before yoouu.”

Bucky sighed, grabbing his spoon too and taking a step into the space reluctantly. “Just hold on tight, you’re gonna taaake the town.”

“Fifth avenue or Rodeo,” Angie sang back, her finger pointing along to the beat. It was cute, she was doing a good job with it and her singing voice was sweet, soft around the edges like she was.

“It’s just a dream away-o.” He tilted his head with a smile and she grabbed his hand, dragging him into the center of the empty space as she sang into her imaginary microphone and swung her skirt back and forth.

“When you come upon perfection, there’s no changin’ your direction.”

She released his fingers to drop his hand, only Bucky held on and lifted his arm up, spinning her once under it as they both sang the next line of the refrain. “Take a look at what I’ve found, it’s enchanting.”

Angie twirled right out of the spin, breaking off on her own with her arms spread wide, looking towards the sky as she shot for the high note, “There’s magic in the air for all to seeeeee.” 

“Tell your girlfriend or your fella,” Bucky tapped his feet and landed with one arm up and a tip of his head, waiting for Angie to take his hand again.

“Grab your purse, leave your umbrella,” her hand landed in his and she skipped forward into his arms, light on her feet as some of the USO dancers were.

“Take a look at what I’ve found,” Bucky landed a hand on her waist and both their feet kicked up, landing perfectly between each other’s to the radio’s crooning.

“Take a look at what I’ve found,” Angie sang back with a tilt of her head, keeping up easy as pie, then he spun her out one more time, blue skirt flaring as he whipped her back in, spoons still held tight in their free hands as they both came in for the final line.

“Take a look at what I’ve foouund,” her heels stopped right between his shoes and he barred an arm on her lower back, dipping her low as she kicked a foot up and swung out a graceful arm on the last note, “for you and meeeeee!” 

The last notes of trumpets blared and Bucky held his arm out to match the angle of hers, then the radio crackled into a fuzz and they both were smiling like fools. He helped her back to her feet and Angie shoved his shoulder playfully, straightening her apron out and spinning his the right way too.

“I _told_ you, Barnes. That was fun, right?” Both lighter on their feet now, they turned their microphones back into spoons and headed for the counter again.

“Well yeah, but we’re in a _kitchen_ and dancing, those two things have gone together my whole life.” He held both palms up at his sides in a _I still don’t know what I’m doing_ gesture.

She gave him a funny look, but her smile was still too wide to properly worry. “I still think you’d be great. It’d be fun, and what’s the _worst_ that could happen?”

Well, considering he got his ass slapped for just wearing an apron, he could only imagine the jeers if he was a dancer or a singer or an actor or whatever Angie was trying to drag him into, but. But she had the most hopeful look on her face right now and she _was_ a pretty fine performer, she deserved a spot in the shining lights of the stage. 

And if he was the only thing standing between fame and Miss Angie Martinelli…

“Okay, _fine_ ,” he relented and Angie literally squealed, bounding up in a flared jump and clapping her hands together.

Bucky rolled his eyes and then she leaned over and planted her _stupid lipsticked lips_ on his cheek. When she pulled back she had that rascal of a twinkle in her eyes and that was on _purpose_ , what a little--

“I’m getting you for that,” Bucky warned, and she had the audacity to snort at him before she got a handful of flour in her hair. 

Angie’s mouth popped open in surprise, which was really perfect timing, because the golden-tinged brown curls shook free the white powder at the exact moment her lips opened, cascading a waterfall of flour into her face and therefore her mouth.

She sputtered in offense and powder went _everywhere_ , and there was nothing that could’ve held in Bucky’s laughter at that moment. 

He clutched a hand over his stomach, bending in half as the sound echoed around the kitchen, tears prickling his eyes by the time he managed to straighten up enough through the huffs of breathy amusement to see the look on Angie’s face. 

And that was all he saw before there was a handful of flour blown right into his face, like she was holding out her palm to blow another kiss, only that was nothing like a kiss that was a goddamned faceful of flour and then it was his turn to sputter and Angie was reaching for the eggs and there was no way in hell he was gonna clean up _that_ mess.

Bucky jumped out of the way, trying to blow flour out of his mouth as he wiped at his eyes, blinking white powder off his eyelashes, then the clack of heels gave her away and Angie was still coming after him with an egg and hell if he was letting her win this.

He darted out of the way just in time, swinging around the middle island and scooping up another handful of flour. Only it didn't fly so well and barely sprinkled the blue uniform, mostly littering the wall with powdered spots. 

A shocked nose of offense and Angie spun back around at him, then Bucky was laughing harder and sprinting for the kitchen exit, sliding into the main area of the diner and colliding with the counter, then Angie came running out after him and he cowered, hands over his head as she lifted the egg over his pretty hair. 

And suddenly gasped, drawing back a step as her eyes went wide. "Dottie! Didn't know there was anyone in here!" Hand on her hip, shock morphing into the perfect acting smile. "Anything I can get for you?" 

Bucky shot up, spinning around to the face of a pretty blonde with exceedingly bouncy curls and a hand over her mouth. She looked more in awe than shocked though, which was definitely good. And Angie knew her, which was also definitely good. 

He was gonna have to be a lot more careful about near losing his job, it was kinda the only one he had. 

"Um. Yeah, hi Angie!" The blonde's voice was annoyingly high and Bucky plastered on a smile as she looked between the two of them, hand lowering. "I left my checkbook earlier, just came back to grab it is all." 

Bucky nodded amiably and started backing towards the kitchen door, wiping some of the flour off his uniform on the way. 

"Oh, Mister, I've just gotta say," Dottie started and Bucky's smiled thinned out a bit as he stepped forward again, leaning on the counter to listen as she took her damned time looking between the both of them with this wide smile. 

"You two are just the most adorable couple I have ever seen." 

"We... _what?_ " Bucky's jaw dropped because God, _Angie_? He'd date Steve before he dated Angie. Although, to be fair, he'd date Steve before he'd date a lot of people--

"Oh no no, hun," Angie assured, reaching over the counter to pat Dottie reassuringly on the arm. "We're not together." 

"Well you _should_ be!" She exclaimed way too brightly and Angie pursed her lips, looking over at Brooklyn to be sure they were on the same page. 

He looked about as shocked and appalled as she felt, which sure was one hell of a comfort. Not that she'd ever worried otherwise, but Dottie was the romantic kind and anyways, it wasn't all that common to have a friendship between a fella and a dame nowadays. 

It was like everyone refused to befriend the opposite sex for fear of ruining it by attraction. Which for her wasn't exactly a problem, and Barnes was too good of a guy to be chagrined by traditional friendship roles. 

So they could dance and laugh as friends. Not that she had any idea how to explain that to Dottie, but. 

"That's real sweet," Bucky thankfully interjected, although beneath the tight smile it was obvious he was just as uncomfortable as she was. 

Then he took a step back from the counter, hand over his heart again as he dipped his head in mock-sorrow. And maybe real seriousness, from the look on his face. 

"--but this heart is spoken for." 

The words were strangely solemn for him, something in his expression deep enough that Angie paused, looking him over closer. 

She wasn't sure he wasn't telling the truth. He was a good actor, but she wasn't sure he was _that_ good. 

"Aw, well, that's too bad," Dottie shook her head once before brightening and shaking the little checkbook in her hand. "But it was a pleasure talkin' to ya, I better get on back to the Griffith if I'm to avoid a stern talking-to." 

She gave them both another bright smile and then the diner was empty again, leaving Angie a moment to study Bucky's profile. She just couldn't get that out of her head, his heart being spoken for. 

Was there some mystery girl he was hiding away? The only dame he ever smiled at and talked about was Peggy. Although, maybe...there was always a chance. They'd known each other through the war, both spent plenty of time with Steve and therefore each other. 

Their evil landlady had mentioned something about Peggy's suitors after all. Could Brooklyn and English possibly be...

Angie shook her head, dislodging another wave of white powder in her face, and fluffed it away in sighing aggrievance, glancing at the equally dusty boy across the way who may have his heart saved for Peggy Carter and thought to herself, she sure as hell hopes not. 

 

 

Two nights later and everyone was free, plus Bucky's tips from the Charlotte Russe left him with more money than he knew what to do with. So he declared a night on the town, called up Peg and Ang and Daniel to come drinking at the local tap. Daniel was following a lead on the case and declined with a promise of a rain check, but that left the four of them to find a sticky booth in the back of the closest bar with a dance floor. 

Or, well. Since Bucky'd choosen it, more like a dance floor with a bar. 

Steve complained the whole taxi ride over that he couldn't dance for anything and Bucky hushed him, said he'd do all the dancing for them both, Steve could stay behind and talk to the ladies. 

"I hope Angie can't dance either," Steve grumbled, holding open the door for Bucky. 

"Tough luck kid, I know first hand she can," Bucky grinned back at him and Steve sighed heavily, following Bucky into the wave of loud brass and drums. 

“Hey fellas!” A petite hand stuck up, waving from across the room and as lovely as Angie’s bright smile was, he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his gut as Bucky lifted a hand and waved back at them, the same smile he always wore, the same wave he’d always had, just like the last time they’d done this, the night before Bucky’d shipped out. 

“Why’d we have to go _dancing_?” Steve complained, trudging behind Bucky with his hands shoved in his pockets. Buck pushed through the crowd, waving for Steve to follow. 

“Because it’ll be fun! C’mon, this is gonna be great. At least you know the girls won’t be awful and ignore you. It’s Peggy and Angie, you love those two.”

That much was true, but how many times had he been dancing with Buck and a couple a' dames? How many times had he actually had fun like Bucky promised? The best part of the night was almost always getting to walk home with Bucky, or the occasional few moments he’d drop by Steve’s table and ruffle his hair or something equally embarrassing. 

He’d end up bored enough to resort to watching the way Bucky danced, memorizing the control he had of his body. Hell, he’d end up bored enough to start thinking when Bucky danced it was kinda beautiful. 

With the look on everyone else’s faces though, odds are he hopefully wouldn’t be bored tonight. 

“Bout time you fellas made it, I was worried Captain America’d get lost in this big grand crowd of New York.” 

“New York is a hell of a lot less scary to Steve than girls are,” Bucky announced loudly, clapping a hand on Steve’s collarbone and squeezing. He shot a glare in the general direction, but Bucky’d already moved on, was scanning the crowd for some blonde-haired beauty to whisk away for the night. 

Or, as it turned out. Multiple blonde-haired beauties. And redhead and brunette and raven haired beauties. 

Actually, Steve was pretty sure Bucky'd dance with every girl in the dancehall by the time the night ended. 

He sighed, propping his head in his hand as Bucky whispered goodbye to one girl and put on his best charmer face as he looked for another. Then he was heading their way and Steve perked a little, because maybe he'd stop the mayhem for drinks with them? 

Those skilled hips sauntered closer and Bucky leaned a hand on the table, over exaggerated drawl as he turned his rascal crystal eyes on them all. 

"Miss Peggy Carter, would I have the honor of dancing with you to this fine song?" 

She gave him an unimpressed look, glancing over at Steve in amusement, communicating quite clearly the intended message of _you pick the lamest friends._

Steve shrugged, head still in his hand because it was Bucky, it wasn't like he had any real authority there. 

"Well, Sergeant Barnes," Peggy tutted, giving him that same red-lipstick amused smile. "I did turn you down last time, so. I suppose one dance couldn't hurt." 

He cheered, wiping a hand through his disheveled hair and fixing it zero before holding out his arm for her to take. She rolled her eyes at all of them and Angie laughed, shooing her onwards. 

"Got the toughest dame on this floor, there's nothing Bucky Barnes can't do," he declared, saluting Angie and Steve before heading off to the dance floor with a patient and admittedly fond Peggy. 

Angie tipped back her drink, leaning over the edge of the table to watch them as Bucky swept Peggy into a skilled Lindy. 

"He is one hell of a dancer," Angie commented, curls bouncing over the top of her coral dress as she flipped her hair back towards Steve. 

"I know," he grumbled, adjusting his shirt uncomfortably and reaching for Bucky's abandoned drink, even though they didn't seem to be hitting him very hard. 

"You dance at all?" Angie asked, leaning over the table. Steve thought back to falling all over the place in the kitchen, his toes on Bucky's feet, the strong arm around his waist keeping him from falling as he stumbled every other step. 

"I'm no good," Steve sighed, and Angie popped right out of her chair like he'd said he was the queen of England. 

"C'mon, USA, we're dancing." She held out a hand and Steve looked up at her like she was crazy. 

"On the same floor as the infamous Bucky Barnes? I don't think so." 

"Wouldn't it be great to show him up for once?" A hand on her hip and that patronizing head dip that said she knew exactly what the answer to that question was. 

"I show him up plenty, just not with this. Besides, he's dancing with Peggy, I'm not sure anything could beat that." 

"Well. I'll have you know Peg is beautiful, but I'm a better dancer. If you can hold your own at all, we can steal that floor from him. C'mon, it'll be fun!"

"That's what Bucky always says," Steve sighed as Angie took his hand and dragged him closer to the parading trumpets and saxophones. "Is it ever fun? No. It's never fun." 

"We'll show him!" Angie shouted over the music and Steve let her lead them to the middle of the dance floor because hell, if he was doing this he might as well go all out. 

 

Four girls, there were four girls giving him the dance-with-me eyes. His first dance with Angie was admittedly a blast, she was super fun and easy to dance with, all about cute jazz hands and kicking feet, nothing so complicated he felt at a loss. 

Actually, he kinda had the hang of this better than he thought he would. He'd never exactly had the chance to dance in public, but apparently years of lessons really did sink in. Especially now that he had a body that listened to him when he told it to do things. 

By the time the song ended, Bucky had glanced their way a dozen times, shock and chagrin shifting to amusement and second-hand joy that Steve was finally having a good time. For once. 

Was it possible to hang around Angie Martinelli and not have a good time? She was just so bright and happy and light - the rest of them had troubles, heavy scenes of war to play at night, scars from bullets and scars in minds. Her though, she managed to lift every one of them in the clouds. And it was sincere too, the bright smiles and judgmental glances, it was kinda what they all needed right now. 

Actually, looking at his three friends on the dance floor, Steve decided he couldn't have made better ones. 

The next song was a slower one, so he gave Angie a grateful nod and made his way across the dance floor to Peggy. 

He managed to stammer through half a proposal before she smiled and took his arm, apparently forgiven for the fumbling mess he'd been last time, stepping on her toes in his nervousness. They were just friends now, better friends at that, and it made it a hell of a lot easier to sweep her across the floor. 

"You've improved," she commented lightheartedly, spinning into his chest and blinking up at him with her captivating eyes. 

"I'm a bit less nervous this time." He guided them in a careful circle with a hand on her waist. It was still strange as hell to be the taller one in the dance, although thank god Bucky'd let him lead a few times back then or else he'd be a total mess. 

"Nothing to prove?" She teased and Steve smiled, dipping her lightly before straightening them both and stepping across the floor again. 

"You talk to Bucky too much," he declared, shooting a half glare across the dance floor, where Bucky was dancing devilishly close to a dame with lovely strawberry blonde curls. 

"I do. Can you imagine if he worked at the office?" 

"No," Steve admitted. As great as it'd be to spend the day with Bucky too, all three of them in the same place was a recipe for trouble. 

"I'm glad you work at the office though," Peggy let him lift her up in a spin, hands a little tight on her waist but at least he didn't drop her, landing her safely back down and into a twirl with a smile. "It's much better with you there, I have to admit."

"Even with me annoying you at your desk all the time?" Steve smiled and Peggy laughed, as gorgeous as she'd always been, no less powerful now than ever. 

"Even with you annoying me at my desk," she agreed. "Better annoyed than ignored." 

"I don't see how anyone could ignore you Peg. You just slide by them all, disappear, and I have no idea how you do it."

"It's an art," she insisted, but the twinkle in her eyes was dulled and she wasn't fooling him. "And quite useful." 

As helpful as it must be, a woman like Peggy wanted respect more than anything. Much more than the ability to be invisible. God knows Steve had a world of respect for her, couldn't imagine what'd he do without her, but that wasn't enough. 

He'd give anything to prove to the rest of them how incredible she was. Or Angie was. Or Bucky was. 

They were all so under appreciated and how was it that he was the only one with a spotlight on him? It was hardly even on him though, more on the red white and blue uniform he'd sold bonds in, he'd fought battles in. It was an icon, but at least that was better than being tossed aside as a secretary lunch order girl, a silly waitress with no talent for acting, or a pretty boy to be dehumanized and harassed for an honest living. 

"You're thinking too much, Rogers," Peggy reminded him softly, taking the lead subtly for a few moments as he blinked and focused back in on the dance floor. 

"Sorry," he apologized automatically and she waved him off with an understanding smile he probably didn't deserve. 

"You about ready to call it a night?" 

"How long have we been dancing?" He asked incredulously, looking around the floor and realizing the music was quite different than the last time he'd noticed. 

"A few songs," Peggy shrugged, but beneath the nonchalance she was studying him a little worriedly. "Not counting the three you danced with Angie and the drinks we got in the meantime." 

He blinked a few times and Peggy's soft hand led him sternly towards the table. "Let's get you sitting down, alright?" 

"What? I'm fine. I'll go get drinks. You sit with Ang, I'll be back in a bit." 

He disappeared before Peggy could stop him, although she wasn't sure there was much she could do at that point anyways. He'd been fine, just a little spaced out. She wasn't a psychiatrist, but she did know Steve. And he was about as ready to admit to being overwhelmed as he was to admit suffering from any form of shell-shock, however minor. 

Maybe it was as simple as he had a memory of having danced before the war and his mind was caught between the two places. The two different bodies. It had to be disorienting at times and there was nothing that could make Steve Rogers fess up to that. 

Not that Barnes was jumping on the opportunity to admit he was still shaken either. Or, well. So long as they were talking about hypocritical soldiers who couldn't sleep half the time, she couldn't exactly cross herself off the list. 

"Man, am I _exhausted_ ," Angie huffed, leaning back dramatically in the booth. Peggy slid in beside her, straightening out the pleats in her dress and toeing out of her heels for a moment. 

“I’d offer to carry you back to the Griffith, but quite frankly I’m not sure I have the balance in those shoes.” 

Angie snorted, glancing over at her with that sly grin, fingernails tapping curiously on the table. “Really English, you think you could carry me?”

It was hard to hear over the sudden blast of saxophone solo, so Peggy raised an eyebrow and reached for the closest drink. It wasn’t a matter of if more than would, which honestly she probably wouldn’t, but the amusement and dim golden lights flashing on Angie’s face made her features soft and sweet, so she tapped her mouth in contemplation, looking Angie up and down like she was judging her heaviness. Because it obviously wouldn’t be for other reasons. Finally she leaned over, raising her voice a bit to be heard over the music. “I think maybe?”

An amused shake of her head and then Angie’s eyes cut away and it took Peggy a beat and a half too long to realize Steve’d landed at their table, tearing her eyes away from the nice blue ones. 

“You ready to head home, Rogers?” Angie shouted over the jazz and Steve sat down heavily, looking around in surprise. 

“Where’s Bucky?”

“Probably making time with that girl a’ his,” Angie muttered and Steve wouldn’t have heard that if it weren’t for the serum. 

“He found one to _stick_ with?” Steve asked incredulously and then it was Angie’s turn to widen her eyes. 

“You mean he hasn’t got a lady friend?”

“Oh hell no,” Peggy replied easily, the same time a worried “I didn’t think so?” came out of Steve’s mouth. 

“Well you two would know.” Ang waved her hand, looking a little confused, and grabbed one of the drinks Steve brought, tipping it back with a shake of her head at the strength. 

He had no idea what that was about, but by the time Bucky stumbled back to their table he looked a bit like their pal Stark, at least three different colors of lipstick smudges on his cheek and another lower down on his jaw. Which reminded Steve, they should’ve asked Howard along. None of them had seen him in a while, it’d be nice to hear what crazy project he was working on next. 

“My god, Stevie, carry me home,” Bucky groaned, falling onto his shoulder and Steve shook his head, wrapping an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and standing. Peggy and Angie looked at each other and laughed, who knew what that was about. 

“Haven’t I always?” He responded, waving for the girls to follow as he lead them for the door.

“No, ‘cause you’re tiny. Were tiny. No longer tiny.” Bright crystal eyes blinked up at him and Steve sighed, tugging Bucky faster so they could get out of here and home as soon as possible. 

Even in his kinda-tipsy, mostly-exhausted state, Bucky managed to prop himself against the door long enough to hold it open for the girls, then Steve was hailing them a cab, looking worriedly up at the sky, pitch black with a sliver of moonlight illuminating the encompassing cloud cover. 

“If it rains on the way home I’m shooting something,” Bucky threatened, wrapping his arms around himself and shivering while he waited for a taxi to finally catch Steve’s hand. Peggy and Angie gave them both kisses on cheeks and Bucky shooed them off with an annoyed, “Careful, you’ll catch something,” then the taxi taillights were fading in the distance and Steve shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“You looked like you had fun tonight,” he offered, falling into step alongside the exhausted trudging feet. 

“Did _you_?” Bucky asked, and that was just like him, always worried about whether Steve enjoyed their ridiculous nights on the town when obviously, he only came along for Bucky’s sake anyways. 

Tonight was different though, it’d been better than most because the girls were so sweet. Even if most of it felt kinda blurry to look back on, it’d been significantly better than every other dance night put together. 

“I had a grand time.” He kicked a stray sidewalk rock with his foot and Bucky nodded, a small content smile on his face at the news. They rounded the corner towards their apartment building and Bucky yawned, the night catching up to him and crashing, from the looks of it. 

“God, I’m gonna sleep for days,” he groaned, tipping his shoulder into Steve’s and Steve shook his head, glancing up as the sky rumbled.

“Well if we don’t hurry home, looks like we’ll be soaked before we get in any sleep at all.” 

Thankfully, they made it in time, and Bucky called on some unknown strength to run the last half block, trudge up the stairs when he felt like curling up right there at the bottom and never getting up ever.

As much as he didn’t wanna ask, he was definitely hoping Steve would just scoop him up and carry him the rest of the way, but honestly, wishful thinking, because that was never gonna happen.

And speaking of that unknown strength, shoving Steve into the apartment ahead of him, Bucky’s brain decided to wander back to the diner a few days ago, the fight that’d almost started. Steve’d been riled up to hell and back, ready to send his fists flying - tried to send his fists flying - and somehow, that unknown strength had let Bucky hold him back. 

Steve’d been way too worked up to notice, but the amount of strength needed to hold back a supersoldier? It was a damn lot more than he was supposed to have. 

Yes, obviously he gained some muscle mass in the war. He could remember being strong, being able to do kinda ridiculous things, but he’d accounted that to the adrenaline, to life or death, to saving Steve.

And pulling him out of a lame diner fight he’d definitely win didn’t really count for adrenaline hits, didn’t really make any sense for amazing feats of strength.

Not to mention none of the alcohol felt like it was really sticking, not like it should. And his healing rate was too high and that doctor’d said he was in _perfect_ shape and really, it was too goddamned late to be thinking about this. He was too tired. 

The morning, he could face everything in the morning.

"You sure impressed those ladies tonight," Bucky commented tiredly, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it at the sink. "You tell ‘em where you learned how to dance?"

He turned around, downing the water in one go and setting it back down on the counter too hard. 

"I wasn’t that good," Steve argued, leaning on the wall like it was just about the only solid thing in the world. Bucky snorted at him, wandering into the living room to find the clipboard Steve'd borrowed, he'd need it for tomorrow. 

"You’re right," Bucky pursed his lips, scanning the room for a few more seconds before deciding he didn't care, glancing up at Steve instead, his last ounce of energy funneled into familiar teasing sarcasm. "You weren’t that good. You were _tolerable._ "

And just like he predicted, the sleepy-blinking eyes opened a little wider, that unmistakable challenge face morphing his features. 

"Oh yeah?" Steve sassed, pushing himself off the wall and swaying a little tiny bit. "Just alright? I think I’m..." Steve sidled up to him, dangerously close as the moonlight bled in through the curtains, one hand curled round Bucky's arm, voice dropping in a low whisper. "...much better than alright."

A shudder went down Bucky's spine and his body was exhausted still, he wanted to roll forwards and collapse on Steve's chest more than anything in the world, could feel the urge hovering over him like a lingering fog. 

But Stevie was standing the closest he'd been all night and finally Bucky could breathe right. He'd danced with every girl he could, just waiting to find one who'd take his mind off dances from the past only he couldn't, no one was good enough to drag him out of the tiny toes atop his feet, the pretty hands perched in his, big blue eyes blinking up at him in exasperation. 

And now they were blinking down at him, just as close, the words of Steve's suddenly confident dancing skills floating between them. 

"Prove it," Bucky whispered, and he was way too drained to expect Steve lifting him up at the waist, setting his bare feet down on Steve's. 

"That's not ho--" 

"Jeez Buck, you're heavy. Don't fall off." And that was all the warning he got before big arms held him close, waltzing them around the little space between the kitchen counters and the couch. 

It wasn't half bad, which was to be expected because he did learn from the best after all. And it wasn't as weird as he thought it'd be, standing on Steve's feet. They'd always danced like this, and it didn't feel that different this way. Except that Steve was the one sweeping them around in circles and Bucky was following, only Bucky followed him everywhere else so he might as well here too. 

It was inevitable Steve tripped sometime, and Bucky braced himself for it from the start; so he fell straight into Steve's chest and wow, it was gonna take a lotta willpower to leave. Not that he'd planned it this way or made his balance tip enough for Steve to trip or anything he'd never do that, not him, no siree, never ever in a million years ever. 

This was a lot of muscle. A godly amount of muscle, really, which shouldn't be all that comfortable except it really was. He could let Steve be his pillow for the rest of his goddamned existence. 

He hummed contently, keeping himself stock still so he didn't burrow closer, but then two hands were on his jaw and lifting his head anyways and damn, what a shame he couldn't just sleep on Steve. 

Except maybe not all that much of a shame because Stevie was holding his face, blue eyes wide and pretty as he blinked down at Bucky, so close, so impossibly close, he could give Steve an Eskimo kiss just by shaking his head. 

“It’s so weird to see your eyes so blue without the black surrounding them," Bucky told him, silence breaking before something else did. This way they kept the nice soft bubble surrounding them without shattering Bucky's heart. 

"You miss me gettin’ in fights?" Steve teased, and the troublemaker spark in his eye was still shining through the silver illumination from the moon and his face really was so pretty when it wasn't black blue and red, stitched up or swollen or bleeding somewhere, then dirt-covered and blood-splattered during the war too and really, Steve thought Bucky'd trade this healthy glow for a day back in the streets or the ditches?

"Hell no," he shook his head, sharply, making it real damn clear he was not encouraging a single fight outta those warm hands. "Just not used to your face bein’ so clean all the time."

"Almost got in a fight at the diner the other day. If it makes you feel any better," Steve offered and really, he was gonna bring that up again? Like it had been a good thing in the least? Bucky narrowed his eyes and scowled. 

"I know. I was there. And no, it doesn’t make me feel any better." 

"That asshole--" he started and Bucky could actually watch the fire spark hotter in his eyes, his hands tightening subconsciously and odds are he was giving Bucky bruises now, just from the memory alone and why was he so hot _-headed_? 

"I can handle myself, Steve. I’m not some..." Bucky wiggled, breaking free of Steve's painful grip on his jaw and stepping back down onto solid ground, wobbling a little at having to support himself, which didn't go all that well with his semi-pissed statement. "...dame that needs to be rescued."

"I never said you were!" Steve sounded genuinely offended at the insinuation, bruising hands reaching out to catch Bucky's wrist before he could back away anymore. "God knows how many fights I’ve dragged you into. But I’m not gonna let some guy harass you either." 

Harass. No, he wasn't gonna think about that. 

God, the hardest part about this whole thing was how much of their dynamic and personalities hadn't changed, but how much Steve's body had. He'd always been big bark and no bite and now his bite was deadly and his bark wasn't near as quiet as it should be. 

Not to mention that twenty years of having the tiny Steve around was quite a difference than the two he'd had to get used to the big version. 

It just got confusing physically sometimes, was all. Steve could push him around now, but more importantly he could push people around on Bucky's behalf and he really wasn't sure how he felt about that. 

He was still studying Steve's face, looking for the catch. Or the reason. Because if he didn't think of Bucky as helpless, than why jump in to save him? It didn't fit in with the rest of Steve's fights, was all. They both knew damn well Bucky could take care of himself, no need for Steve to cause a scene, but he had anyways, and for what? 

Then the hand on his wrist suddenly lifted both their arms up, spinning Bucky in a fairly impressive turn, whipping him back in and Steve's smile was wide now, eyes laughing, because he'd one-upped Bucky again and really, he couldn't settle for that. 

Using the momentum of the spin, Bucky let himself crash right into Steve, hands planted solid to the hard chest and shoving, making Steve stumble backwards into the couch, landing on it half-sideways with a thump. 

Only he still had Bucky's wrist. The world shot by him and then he was collapsed on the couch too, tangled up with limbs and warmth and this was the part they'd usually wrestle, shove each other and roll back onto the floor, kicking and grabbing and laughing. 

Except there was a couch cushion pressed against his side and a lovely arm pillowed beneath his head that wasn't his and before Steve could tug him into the wrestling match, Bucky slipped his eyes closed, deflating against the pile of warm limbs and steady breathing and soft couch cushions. 

"You're gonna wake up with terrible crinks," Steve warned, moving to shove him off. 

Bucky whined and burrowed closer, tightening his arm over whatever long stretch of Steve he was wrapped around. He didn't even care what part, just that Steve was warm and breathing and with the two most important things crossed off the list he could finally get some quality rest for once in his godforsaken life. 

"Don' make me move," he mumbled against Steve's ribcage and there was a soft sigh over him, one that sounded like defeat, then a warm hand stroked down his back once and there was no way in hell he'd manage to keep awake after that. 

They both fell asleep draped over each other, and for once Steve was wrong, because Bucky didn't have a single crink when he woke up the next morning. Maybe it was destiny, fate, a sign from the gods. He was supposed to fall asleep on Steve. It was just the will of the world. 

Well, it would be if he had his way, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the song [Take a Look at What I've Found](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYRG0kGgP7Y) by Lori Lynner
> 
> Ily to all the readers, double kisses for anything you wanna leave to say :)  
> xx


	4. I'll take the bullet but not the blame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm not really warnings for this one, except someone gets not-gravely-injured and there's a lot of yelling? (And the plot-twist has been suspended again yep)
> 
> Aaand, a feature from some characters that will definitely be showing their faces again in this story!

The ringing shrill of a telephone was not the most fantastic thing to wake up to, especially when she wasn’t supposed to be dozing on her desk in the first place. At least Steve wasn’t here to give her shit as she startled awake, fumbled for the phone and pressed it uncomfortably hard to her ear. 

“Hello?” 

“Where did you get this?” A voice demanded and Peggy sighed, glancing around and relieved to see everyone was preoccupied with their lunches or already packing for the trip that evening.

“Hello to you too, Howard. How did you get my line?” 

“Rose likes me, but that’s not the point. Peg, seriously, I know it’s top secret or something, but this isn’t one you can _throw under the table_ ,” he hissed, and she could just picture his mustache twitching with annoyance on the other side of the telephone line. “Where did you get this formula?”

“You know I can't tell you that,” Peggy chided, opening a folder on her desk so any onlookers would assume she was working. Which she was, although this case was hardly sanctioned. So she lowered her voice as she spoke into the receiver again. “But why are you so worried? Did you figure it out?”

“Yes, and that's why I'm worried! You thought my inventions were bad? Okay - well, some of them are - but they’re not in the hands of whoever the hell you got this from! ” Howard hissed again and if he was this worked up, maybe she should be getting out _that_ case file. Peggy slipped the broch off her frock, unsnapped the key from the back and jimmied open her bottom drawer while Howard kept ranting on the other end of the line, “...this is _not_ something the SSR should have their hands on.”

“Well, the good news is, they don't. The only people who know about it are you and I.” She flipped open the Italy Project file and flipped the first few fake pages, taking in the notes she’d written over margins. “Well. And the Russians I think. Which I'm guessing is a bad thing?”

“Christ. I don’t know why they wouldn’t have used it yet if they have it. Unless - I mean, unless it’s not intended to kill everything it touches. Took me forever to even figure out the chemical formula number correspondents. Whoever made it had a hell of a lot of patience, because the first hundred isotope combinations I tried all exploded. The only stable one I finally got yesterday and spent the past 24 hours testing with the most _terrible_ results you could imagine, Peg.

“Everything I've injected with this stuff has died, miserably. I could make a dozen fur coats with the amount of small animals that've bit it in the name of science. I even tested it on human epithelial tissue, cardiac tissue, everything I could think of. The cells morph, then go through rapid apoptosis. Which is--”

“Programmed cell death, yes, I know,” Peggy interrupted, lifting her pencil from the page to circle the word _apoptosis_. “This is definitely not something we want to take to the SSR then, is it?”

“No, it is not,” Howard tsked, a soft crash in the distant background over the line. Peggy closed up her folder, sliding it back underneath the fake bottom in her lowest drawer and locking it back up. They’d hit a stand still, which meant either Howard would have to have a breakthrough in the lab or she’d have to go busting some more heads for better answers than just a chemical formula.

“Well, I'll see what else I can find on it,” she promised, grabbing her purse and slipping back into her heels to stand, phone cord dangling in the extra distance. “And keep testing, see if there's possibly anything that can survive it.” 

“Will do. But you be careful Peg,” Howard warned, the slightest bit of genuine worry in his voice as his last words echoed ominously long after she’d hung up the phone. “I hate to imagine what'd happen to one of us if we got hit with this.”

 

Bucky braced his feet, curled his fingers tight under the slats, and lifted. The crate creaked in protest for a moment but finally tugged into the air, balance a little off as he stumbled, but finally placed the thing on the top shelf of the delivery truck. 

“Wow,” Angie commented, one hand on her hip and impressed look on her face. “I thought for sure I’d have to drag Steve back here. You had way more army training than it looks, Brooklyn, you can lift something that heavy?” 

Bucky shrugged, brushing his hands off against each other and hopping down off the platform. “Guess I’m stronger than I look.” 

“I’d say,” she shook her head and started back into the kitchen, passing right over the first serving tray to grab one with a slice of pie and a cup of coffee on it. He’d spent enough lunches in here by now to recognize the order and had to fight the smile as Angie swooped into the diner, heeled shoes pointed straight for the familiar booth. 

“And how’s work goin’ today, Carter?” Angie asked cheerily, setting the pie and coffee down in front of the distracted brunette. Peggy lifted her head at Angie’s approach, red-lipsticked frown lifting into an easy smile at the expectant look. 

“It’s going quite well for once. I've actually been approved for a rather important travel opportunity this afternoon,” Peggy returned and Angie tilted her head curiously, tapping the newspaper Peggy’d been scanning with a frown. 

“Then what’s the worry-crease for, honey? My grandma always says frownin' takes off significant years from your skin's vitality.” Angie gave her a pointed look and Peggy's frown curved up in a bit of a smile. 

“Just something in the papers about the war...nothing to worry about. And how’s your shift going?”

“Better now that I’ve got some smiling faces to serve.” Angie gave Peggy a simple bright shrug and started for the kitchen again, slight pep in her step as she passed Bucky, leaning on the counter with his little blue hat crooked to the side again. 

Steve was wearing the same frown Peggy was looking over his paper, except he was sitting at the bar instead because Bucky had to work behind the counter and Peg said she had some files to look over during lunch so he let her be.

Bucky tipped the top of Steve’s newspaper down, caught the headline and sighed, leaning on his elbows as he glanced between the cover picture and Steve’s face. 

“Can you believe the war is over? We actually made it through,” Bucky shook his head in wonder and Steve looked up, setting the paper aside with a curious cocked eyebrow that asked a question in a silent language the two of them had spoken with for years. Bucky shrugged in response, toying with a string on the edge of Steve’s sleeve as he looked down at their hands. “I dunno, I guess I just never saw us surviving that.”

“What, you think we'd both go down?” Steve asked, flicking Bucky off him when his fingers started spinning Steve’s cufflinks annoyingly. 

“If you did I'd sure as hell be following,” Bucky muttered under his breath, fingers curling against the smooth surface of the counter. 

“What?” 

“Nothing,” Bucky straightened up with a smile, reaching behind him to grab a stack of ordering-notebooks and started counting them onto the counter beside Steve’s coffee. “What was it you wanted to say about work?”

Steve studied him for a moment before sighing to himself, grabbing a sip of his drink before leaning back in his chair and adjusting the suspenders snapped to his belt.

“I've got a mission I've gotta go on, leaving this afternoon.” Bucky’s head snapped up and Steve chose the next words carefully, because he already knew the kinda questions Bucky would be asking but this time was different, this was a lot more serious than some simple trip to Virginia. “They found a place one of the shipments are going to. “

“Where?” Bucky demanded instantly and Steve shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting down to the shine of the counter instead of Bucky’s demanding ones.

“It's real top secret, Buck.” When he looked up again, Bucky’s expression hadn’t changed the slightest.

“Where?” He asked again and Steve sucked in a breath, drumming his fingers for a moment before letting it out and relenting. 

“It's in Europe, that's all I can tell you.”

"You're going to _Europe??_ " Bucky's jaw dropped, fumbling a notebook and blinking rapidly, papers crumpling in his hands as the shock steeled into that set jaw, the tightness around his mouth and words very careful and slow, almost formal sounding like he'd explode otherwise. "Steve, I. I'm not comfortable with you going to Europe without me." 

His teeth grit on the last two words and Steve swirled his coffee mug, watching the foam for a moment before glancing back up at Bucky's rigid body. 

"You can't exactly come,” he pointed out axiomatically, which was definitely not the right thing to say. 

Bucky tossed aside the crumpled papers, both hands landing heavy on the counter as his chill started slipping. 

"Can't they send anyone else? I don't even know your team, how do I know they'll keep an eye on you like they're supposed to? I mean, as great as Sousa is--" Buck rambled, almost to himself, and Steve was already cringing as he interrupted. 

"Daniel’s not going."

A single brief pause where Bucky froze and stared at him, then both his hands were in the air and he was pacing worry-marks into the tiles on his side of the counter 

"Then why can’t you stay home too?! It’s not safe, it’s freaking Europe, I know first hand how dangerous it is, war or not." An accusing finger at Steve, then Bucky was talking to the ceiling, hands still gesturing with the manic words. "You never needed a war to get yourself in trouble, you’ve been gettin’ in trouble in _Brooklyn_ for longer than I can remember, now you wanna go overseas? Without me?"

"Bucky--" 

Steve might as well've been invisible because Bucky went right on rambling, freaking the hell out about this, and really, Steve'd known he wouldn't be happy about it but he hadn't pictured a meltdown either. 

It was a good thing Peggy'd made an offhand comment about soothing Bucky's nerves, otherwise this might cause legitimate problems. 

“Who's gonna stop you from jumping out of buildings or making some suicide play? Going to an interrogation center is one thing but chasing a live trial on this, I can't trust you won't get in trouble and the fellas at the SSR sure as hell don't know how to handle you or put their foot down--”

“Bucky. Bucky!" Steve finally stopped him, both hands up to placate the pacing waiter shoes and get Bucky to shut up for long enough to calm him down. "You're right, the SSR won't, but I'm pretty sure Dugan would be happy to yell at me on your behalf.”

“Dugan? What?” Bucky blinked confusedly and it took a lot of willpower not to grin as he pulled out the one bargaining chip he had. 

“The Commandos are going.” 

“The-- okay, thank _God_." Bucky practically collapsed against the wall, nearly hitting his head on a waiting serving tray perched on the window ledge to the kitchen. Steve took a sip of his coffee and Bucky wiped his hands on his apron, the invisible worry-meter over his head emptying as he finally calmed down enough to lift his head again. "Wait. You actually pulled that off?” 

Steve shrugged, setting his mug down and wrapping both hands around it. “I figured you'd be uncomfortable with me going on my own. Wouldn't want my best friend losing sleep over me.”

Bucky glared. Steve let him glower for a moment before tipping his head with a little smile, conceding to the rest of the truth. 

“And, okay, the office asked for experts in European fronts and the 107th came up, so Peg made the call,” Steve admitted. Bucky was still glaring a little, mostly at the insinuation, so Steve shook his head and sighed the end to himself, “--and they all jumped yes at her request as always.” 

"Y'all are a devilish team." Bucky reached for the crumpled notebook, attempting to straighten it while Steve watched in amusement. The pages were wrecked to hell and Bucky eventually sighed, tossing it in the trash and collapsing his arms on the counter, glancing up at Steve under long lashes. 

Steve scooted his mug aside, reached across the space between them to tap Bucky's arm with a single finger, three taps before his hand curled and he pressed backs of his fingers to Bucky's warm skin. 

"This devilish team is gonna miss you."

Bucky shook his head once, bright smile in crystal eyes as his pouty mouth turned down with an exaggerated frown and he straightened up, shoving Steve's hand off him with a gruff, "Get the hell outta my diner."

"Yessir," Steve sassed, popping out of his chair with a two fingered salute tipped to his temple. Bucky rolled his eyes and Steve grabbed his bag and jacket, starting for the door with a wave over his shoulder. 

He made it halfway across the diner before a voice called out behind him, "Wait!" 

Three tables of customers turned their heads at the shout, two booths turning too as Bucky wrestled his apron off and threw it down on the counter, swinging around the edge. 

Steve's eyebrows went up as he turned around all the way, mouth open to ask Bucky what in the world he'd forgotten, then Bucky was colliding with his chest and Steve's arms shot out in surprise, wide eyes looking down at a muscular back under the light blue uniform, Bucky's chin tucked over his shoulder and strong arms wrapped around his back. 

It took a second before he caught on, slowly lowering his arms to circle around Bucky's waist and hug him back, fighting the urge to shove his nose in Bucky's hair and inhale warmth and familiarity because they were in goddamn public and he really had to keep his eyes open.

Too soon Bucky was drawing back, shoving space between them with one hand lingering on Steve's shoulder as Bucky's gaze flicked up to his, eyes twinkling to mask the worry Steve could still see underneath. 

"Be careful, okay?" Buck said, real low, looking up under his lashes with two strands of escaped hair disheveled over his forehead, pinning Steve serious. 

Before he could even think up a reply, the hand on his shoulder clapped once and Bucky was headed back to the counter, whistling softly to himself like he hadn't just tackled Steve in the middle of the diner. 

Steve took a second to recalibrate, blinking as he distantly watched Bucky tie his apron around his waist with a perfect bow over his-- Right, he had a mission to go on. Places to be. 

He shook his head, adjusting the jacket draped over his arm and starting for the revolving door again. He'd mostly been teasing about Bucky being worried, but maybe he'd hit a little close to home. 

Or maybe more than a little. 

At least he'd be in good hands, right? 

 

 

"Emu."

“What? Ostrich, man.”

"Ostrich!"

“Shut up.”

“Emu!”

"Cannards!" 

A burst of laughter and Steve shared an amused glance with Peggy, her eyes rolling in fond exasperation. 

"Is a cannard a bird?" One of the SSR Agents leaned over with a whisper and Peggy glanced over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. 

"Cannards is French for assholes," she said flatly and the three SSR agents behind them went bug-eyed at the vulgar word out of her mouth. Steve bit his lip to keep from bursting into laughter the way Gabe had, then Peggy was turning back to the tree line, raising her voice to shout, "The code word is _Eagle_ you apes!" 

A chorus of "Peggy!"s erupted and then a group of soldiers were bursting into the clearing. 

The foremost, loud in a bowler hat, bounded forward to haul Peggy up in a bone-crushing hug, her boots kicking a foot off the soft ground. 

"Miss U!" Dugan cheered, setting her back on her feet with a strand of escaped hair from her bun caught in her mouth. 

She made a face and tucked it back behind her ear, only to be side tackled by a slightly less loud Englishman. 

By the time Monty pulled back the SSR agents were all frozen in confused shock, watching the scene with wide eyes as Jones and Morita both clapped her congenially on the shoulder while Dernier swooped low and kissed her hand. 

She batted at him and they all cheered a little longer, making her roll her eyes before she finally turned back around to the rest of the agents for introductions. 

The Howling Commandos beat her to it, Dugan stepping forward and gesturing at Steve with a big hand before glancing back at his team. 

"Say, haven't I seen him somewhere before?"

"Dunno, I spose he looks a _tad bit_ familiar," Falsworth pondered, stroking his mustache in faked confusion. 

Steve rolled his eyes and Gabe shrugged exaggeratedly at Dernier, mouthing _never seen him before._

"Yeah, Dum-Dum, who is that again?" Morita imputed, one hand on his gigantic rifle and the other on his hip. 

Steve shook his head, sticking his tongue in his cheek and looking out to the side before pinning them all with his best unamused face. 

"Very funny," he said dryly and Dugan scratched his head, crinkling up his nose like he _still_ didn't know who Steve was. Finally Steve sighed, shifting his weight and rolling his eyes good-naturedly, "Guys, c'mon." 

That was all it took before Dugan wrestled him into a very brief hug, shoving Steve back onto his feet with a sock to the shoulder that had him wincing in offense, hand over the bruising spot as he furrowed his eyebrows at the rest of the Commandos. 

"That's exactly what you get for not callin' until you need us. What are you, dead?" Dugan shoved him again and Steve stumbled a bit before finally straightening up to his full height and shooting a pretend glare at Dum-Dum. The bowler hat just shook exaggeratedly, actually looking a bit miffed as he chewed Steve out. "We're your goddamn family Rogers, you forget that and I'll show up guns blazing and lead a mission into your apartment to haul your ass out and kick some sense into ya." 

Jack Thompson made a confused sound behind them, stuck between amused and mildly alarmed. 

Then Dugan's arm was looping over Steve's shoulder, dragging him towards the rest of the boys. "Which reminds me, we're all having thanksgiving at Gabe's place, you and Sarge better be there." 

Jones pointed a serious confirming finger at Steve and he put both hands up with a quick nod promise before Dernier found it necessary to rip into him too. 

"Speaking of which..." Falsworth interrupted, shouldering his gun and peering around the three awkwardly standing SSR agents. "...where is the army's loveliest sniper?"

"Buck's a waiter now," Steve told them, and the dropping jaws on the rest of the boys was _exactly_ the reaction Steve'd expected. 

"A waiter? Three medals of distinction and the best marksmen in Europe and he's a _waiter_?"

Gabe sounded legitimately offended and Steve shrugged his shoulders up, palms towards the sky 

"Hey, I tried everything short of kicking him out of the apartment." 

"Cap, you could no more kick Barnes out of your apartment then you could kick the magic juice outta your body," Dugan dead-panned and the splattering of snorts and laughter made him glare at them all, shrugging Dugan's arm off his shoulder and snatching the spare gun Dernier offered him without so much as a thank you. 

"Haha," Steve replied dryly, flipping on the safety and tucking the gun in his belt, briefly registering that Peggy'd gestured for the SSR agents to follow them, Thompson's recognizable tread just off to the left, on the other side of Dugan. 

Steve really wished Jack hadn't been assigned to this mission, not when he wanted to spend time with his Howling Commandos _without_ spending the whole time trying not to punch the asshole making his life hell back in New York. 

Speaking of New York, the Commandos were still hung up on Buck not being here. Which wasn't all that surprising, considering he was the most loved story-teller, singer, and general member according to all 7/7ths of them. The number of late night fires that Bucky'd animatedly danced around, the number of pranks pulled on superiors, the amount of respect they all had for their Sergeant - it was Bucky that got them all together in the first place, after Azzano, the one who'd helped them all _survive_ those cages, sacrificing himself for torture so the others wouldn't have to. 

So everyone grumbled about him being gone for a few minutes before Jones finally spoke up loud enough for actual comment, tipping his helmet towards Steve with a shake of his head. 

"Seriously, I'm surprised he let you come to Europe without him." Morita made a noise of agreement and Jones huffed, hoisting his gun higher with a side-glance at the rest of the Commandos. "Goddamn territorial son of a bitch."

"I am not Bucky's territory," Steve shot back and his protest was met with the most _outrageous_ looks. 

Even Peggy cocked an unimpressed eyebrow and Steve looked down at his boots, pretending his cheeks hadn't blushed the color of the shield on his back. He wasn't. He really wasn't. 

Dugan sighed with that signature exaggerated _oh the life I lead_ , taking a step sideways to toss an arm over an SSR agent, the one eyeing Steve weirdly, dipping his head in to explain wistfully,

"Worst damn case of big-brother syndrome--"

" _Or something like that_ ," Dernier mumbled and everyone pretended they didn't understand French. 

"--I've ever seen. You met Sergeant Barnes?" 

Dugan released Thompson's shoulder with a hard pat to his back and Jack winced, rubbing his shoulder. 

"No, I haven't." Jack's blue eyes flitted over to Steve and Steve looked away, self-consciously fixing the swoop in his pomade. 

"Wow," Monty turned around, walking backwards so he could face the rest of them and carry on with the teasing in his heavy English accent. "That's quite a surprise. It's amazing he hasn't shown up to the SSR for lunch every day." 

"He doesn't have to." Steve shrugged, stepping over a tree root and shooting the rest of them a sly glance because hell, better to go along with the Commando teasing because it's not like they'd give it up anytime soon anyways. "I told you he's a waiter, where do you think _I_ eat lunch?"

Dernier's high cackle and Dugan's bellowing laugh echoed through the trees and Steve smiled, shaking his head to himself as he let his shoulder bump Jones's, grins on everyone's faces now as they settled back into the same rhythm they'd always had, even sans a member. 

Peggy could always filled the feisty, sassy brunette role, throwing a dry comment over her shoulder about, "I'm fairly sure he has a designated booth," that echoed more laughs around the boys and even if Bucky wasn't here--

This was nice. Being with his team again, being amongst soldiers he had nothing to prove to. Family. 

Agent Thompson had fallen back a step or two, was watching the scene with silent, observant eyes. Rogers was different around them, brighter, taller. A soldier. 

Jack huffed to himself and checked the ammunition in his belt. Honorable soldiers, right. Weren't they all. 

 

"You SSR agents useful enough to bring the good stuff?" Dugan announced more than asked, tossing another stick at the fire. 

"You wanna charge this base tomorrow inebriated?" Thompson asked incredulously, his voice still throttled enough not to waive respect - like if Dugan answered yes, then he'd be handing over gin without further question. 

"Who said anything about alcohol?" Morita snickered and Dernier grabbed a long stick from behind him, waving it over the fire enthusiastically. 

"S'mores!" 

Agent Yaulk snorted, leaning over to Thompson and muttering under his breath, "The famous Howling Commandos roast _s'mores_ as the 'good stuff?'" 

"Don't knock it till you try it," Falsworth tutted and Steve shook his head, adjusting to lean further back on the log, elbow hooked over the top of it while he watched the flames dance between them. 

"Don't worry, they still get plenty drunk," Peggy assured and Jones made an offended sound, barking something at Dernier in French that Peggy made an offended face at in return. 

"So what do you boys at the SSR do? If it's not roastin' s'mores and tippin' bottles." Dugan poked the fire and Jack sighed, tipping his head and glancing briefly at Rogers. 

"It's not action like the frontlines was, but there's still enough drama to keep everyone's panties in a twist." 

"You fight the frontlines for long?" 

"Okinawa." Thompson rolled his lips in and Jones nudged Morita, who glared and hissed back _Fresno._

"C'mon then, storytime." 

"I got nothing you guys ain't heard before. Did a lot of ground work, dug a lot of trenches." He shrugged and Steve ignored him, picking up a stick from the ground and turning it over in his hand. 

Everyone else seemed quite interested though, even Peggy leaned forward with a cajoling remark. "They don't give out Navy Crosses just for digging trenches."

"Navy Crosses..." Steve glanced up in time to see Jack bite his bottom lip in contemplation, heating a shade in the firelight and looking away even faster. "Nah, it's really not that good of a story."

"Nonsense, I'm sure it's riveting," Falsworth encouraged and Steve reached into his pocket, digging out his flip knife with a scoff. 

"No, he's probably right, Jack's stories are boring." Steve popped his knife open with a click and Peggy kicked his thigh quite rudely. 

"Rogers!" Dugan scolded, a beat late because he'd been waiting for Bucky to do it. 

"What?" Steve grumbled, sinking lower and crossing his arms over his chest. "They are," he insisted petulantly. 

"No, really Thompson," Peggy insisted, shooting a mild glare at Steve from her perch on his backrest log. "--we'd love to hear."

 _"We'd love to hear,"_ Steve mouthed right after her, mocking the sincere expression and rocking his head exaggeratedly. Peggy didn't grace him with so much as an acknowledgement, although Jack was glaring plenty from across the fire when Steve looked back up. 

Steve lifted his chin in challenge and Jack's eyes narrowed, tipping his head with a devilish grin as he changed tactics entirely. 

"Hmm, since you're _all_ so eager," he started and Steve rolled his eyes, slumping further down on the log and sliding the edge of his knife along the stick he'd picked up. 

"Alright. Nothing detail. I fall asleep on the night shift." Thompson pursed his lips, Rogers' attention absorbed in his whittling and the face of the challenge consequently dropped. Which made the next words suddenly a lot harder to say. His throat tightened and he paused, gathering the words exactly and starting again, slower this time. 

"I wake up, six Japanese soldiers walking into my camp, just waltzing in in the dark. One of them bends down over my sleeping C.O. One more second...he'd slit his throat." 

Just the crackle of the fire now as Jack stared into the flames and tried not to think about the way the gunpowder'd clung to his skin after, the dirt from digging not cleared out of his nails for weeks. 

"Snapped to. Shoot him in the back. Shoot them all, before they even knew I was there. Before my last man was even awake." He sucked in a breath, hating the way he fell silent after that, the shrug he gave instead of the proper ending of the story. 

Thompson forced a huffed laugh, hands clenched to keep from shaking. "Truth be told, boring stories are better." 

For once, Steve Rogers kept his mouth shut. Everyone was quiet, a few with their heads ducked, staring at hands, others looking off in the flames and they could all see it, feel the discharge in their own hands. 

The soft scrape of knife over wood and Rogers hadn't stopped whittling, seemingly unmoved by the story at all which, fine, Thompson didn't need him to be. 

But the little nod and understanding smile from Carter was surprising, and he definitely couldn't say unappreciated. 

Not like he'd expected Rogers to be all sympathetic for him, he hadn't expected much from him - as per regular pattern - at all. And for once he was at least right, that for whatever reason Rogers justified to himself he either didn't believe Jack's story or maybe he's honestly seen so many horrors similar they left him unfazed by now. 

Or, hell, maybe Rogers really did have actual human emotions underneath the apple-pie golden-boy Adonis exterior and he was keeping everything tucked safely away. He wouldn't rule anything out. It was Rogers, after all. 

 

Which should apparently have been the motto of the trip, because they'd barely split into teams when Steve was already off on some radical tangent idea of his own. 

The mission was pretty straight forward: Sousa'd tracked down a location for one of the shipment boxes - it'd been in code, but Carter'd cracked it inside of minutes - and now they were the team to check out the warehouse. Gather Intel, collect witnesses and leads if possible. 

They had no idea what kind of security or gun-power they were going up against, it could be anything from abandoned to the head base of operations for whatever the hell project this was. 

Steve sat silently back on his heels as Thompson gave his team split-up assignments, but the moment Thompson opened up the floor for other suggestions, Rogers laid out an intricate, sensible plan that had strengths on each team and a cohesion that was regrettably ingenious. 

So they went with Rogers' plan. Jack could swallow his pride when it came to something like that. Hell, let the great Captain prove him wrong in all his assumptions, it'd be a blessing for them both. 

Though he'd been wrong about one thing for sure, because he'd heard Rogers was a risk taker but he'd never pictured _this_.

"We're supposed to stay with the team," Jack reminded curtly, glancing over his shoulder as Rogers jimmied the lock a little harder. "It was your goddamn team assignments, the least you could do is stick with them." 

"Monty, Morita, and Agent Yauk will be fine. But if you're concerned, feel free to turn around and join them," Steve suggested, still bent in half to pick the lock with the stray bobby pin he'd had in his belt. 

"And let you have all the fun? I don't think so." Jack adjusted the gun strap across his chest, peering over his shoulder to scan the empty hallway again, mostly so he didn't have to look at Rogers. 

Personally, he could think of about a thousand places he'd rather be than standing guard as Rogers lock-picked his way into a random room he 'had a feeling about' and ducked away from the rest of the team to go explore. 

Jack was the only one who noticed, and dropped off the rear to follow, mostly because he didn't trust whatever the hell Rogers got up to on his own. Steve hadn't been the most pleased that Jack had followed him, but there wasn't anything either of them could do about it now and they were still supposed to be in stealth mode, sneaking through dimly lit, flickering concrete hallways to get a layout of the building before they went barging anywhere and set off nine hundred alarms. 

Which was why Rogers couldn't just crack the lock open with the shield strapped to his back; too loud of a noise, which left ~~them~~ him with no choice but to lock-pick it old-fashioned style. It took a hell of a lot longer and Thompson couldn't imagine for the life of him why Captain America might know how to pick a lock and was starting to think maybe he didn't, right as the thing finally snapped open, 

"Bingo," he muttered under his breath, lifting the lock off the door and sliding it through an empty slot in the chains holding the doors closed, unwinding them carefully and unfortunately loudly, before they were finally pushing through the doors and could safely shut the damn things behind them. 

"This is not what I was expecting." Jack stepped further into the room, following Rogers tentatively. Steve had already pushed forward, nudged the first crate with his foot. Something clanked and both their eyebrows went up, then Jack was scanning over the rest of the crates, counting a rough estimate of thirty. Piled high, to the ceiling, nothing else in the room but huge dark windows on the opposite wall, next to a metal, industrial-like door. 

"You sure that's a good idea?" Thompson took a step closer to where Rogers was crouched next to the first crate, prying at its lid. 

"You suddenly concerned for my safety?" He shot back and Jack rolled his eyes, checking over his shoulder again at the shadows cast by dim bulbs overhead. 

"Concerned for _mine_. It could be explosive, corrosive, whatever. I don't tend to open unknown crates in the middle of some abandoned warehouse in Russia," Jack hissed and Steve scoffed, finally wedging his fingers under the lip and prying upwards. 

"Well. I do," he huffed, crate groaning at the yank, then the top was popping off and clattering to the ground by Jack's foot. Rogers glanced over his shoulder with a pointed, "-and we don't know it's abandoned," before dropping to his knees in front of the opened box. 

A ruffling of packaging material and Jack shifted his feet, anxiety sinking in through his bones. He'd heard Rogers was good, yeah, but they were in totally unknown territory right now, only two men and those glass windows on the other wall were starting to freak him out. It almost felt like an interrogation room, which God knows he had enough experience with. 

"The hell?" Rogers muttered, reaching his entire arm into the crate while Jack cringed and simultaneously tried to peer over Steve's shoulder to get a glimpse of whatever the hell was so damn intriguing. 

A glinting flash and Jack's gun came up on instinct, then Rogers was drawing the reflective thing into the open and he lowered his sights, squinting to attempt details in the dark. 

"What is that? Metal?"

"Looks like." 

He tugged the rest of the packaging material from the piece, fluttering paper to the ground as he turned over the strange twisted thing in his hands. 

"A cuff, maybe?" Rogers held up the metal loop, triangular plates dangling off one end. 

"I think it's a glove." 

"A metal _glove_? The hell for?" 

And that's when the room lit up, flashing red as an alarm burst through the air. 

" _Shit._ C'mon," Thompson waved for Rogers to follow, shouldering back through the way they'd come in- 

Only the hallway was filled with trampling boots, foreign shouts. 

He shoved the door back closed, gesturing at the other end of the room. Rogers bust the lock on the red door easily, twisted metal still in hand as he disappeared, a clank and two thumps echoing by the time Jack pushed open the red door after him. 

A cacophony of bullets and he barely ducked behind the ledge in time. The door opened onto a platform, the landing of metal stairs leading down to the room below. The railing was grated enough to stop the pattering of bullets, but left the view below, like looking through bars on a cage. 

Rogers was on the floor by now, shield on his arm as he whipped it across a black-uniformed guard, kicking off another to toss the shield, bouncing off walls and knocking over two more and Jack couldn't breathe. 

A shot bounced off the grate next to his ear, a flurry of sparks with it and he flinched, curled down closer to the ground. 

Flashes, blood splattering across the side of his face, discharged bullet casing burning his arm. The smell of gunpowder lingering, the screams beneath the crackle of the flames--

"Thompson," someone hissed, "Snap out of it." 

Small, soft hands shook him and he rocked and rocked and rocked and he couldn't breathe, not if he didn't want to inhale the sparks--

" _Thompson!_ " 

A sharp, commanding British voice. 

But it was a girl, and that didn't belong. 

That wasn't...that wasn't the war he knew. 

"Get yourself together," Carter hissed and Thompson blinked, sucking in a shot of tainted oxygen, disheveled blonde hanging in his eyes. 

The warehouse. 

Enemy gunfire, warehouse, Russia. 

Peggy Carter was crouched next to him, hand on one shoulder, other holding a pistol of her own. 

"Jack? Are you alright?" 

"Aces," he muttered, wiping a shaking hand down his face. Peggy popped to her feet and held out her hand in offering to help up - 

He'd told Chief Duley, before they left, how degrading it'd be to have a woman on his team, to have to look after her, only now she'd just looked out for _him_ and some part of him wanted to swat her hand away, jump up and snap at her that he could take care of him damn self. 

Sousa, with his bum leg and hurt puppy face, wouldn't have frozen. But if he did, he'd push through it, he'd be the same damn good person he always was. 

He'd take Carter's hand, no question. 

Jack clasped his fingers in hers and she tugged him upright, clap to his bicep and a gentle look that wasn't soft enough to make him feel broken, just. Cared for. A fellow soldier. 

"Thompson!" Rogers shouted from below and Jack gave her a quick nod that didn't hold half the weight he meant it to, vaulting down the stairs as she disappeared back from wherever the hell she'd come from. 

Which was a door off to the left they hadn't seen - no one had but her, and odds are her team was looking for her too, so she really ought to get back to them. 

Peggy slid through the back hallway, patting her vest to make sure the vial and file she'd snagged were still in there. Safe. 

It'd been a long shot in the first place - just a feeling. But Zola had been in Azzano, there was a chance he was connected to her Project Italy. And if he was connected to both that and the SSR's case - there was a chance she'd find something here to apply to her case _there._

The science lab she stumbled upon proved her more right than she'd been hoping. File upon file of records, cases stamped with _subject deceased._ The formula she'd given Howard was nowhere to be found, but the reports were filled with words like "apoptosis" and "injection proved lethal." 

It was either a wild coincidence or she'd found the case files to the formula Howard was working on. The catch though, the part that made her freeze, carefully lifting a file out of the pile? 

Case 17. 

Because the stamp on top wasn't there. The subject wasn't deceased. 

She'd grabbed the bloodwork labeled with the Russian word for 17, and the second she tugged it out of its spot, the whole place had lit up in alarms. 

Apparently the only thing with a direct trigger to the security system were the science samples. Not that anyone else on the team needed to know that, so that's why Дао 17 and the bloodwork were tucked inside her uniform, out of sight as she hurried across the warehouse to catch the rest of the team before everyone noticed she was gone. 

 

The thing most people didn't realize about the serum was that while Steve did heal from most injuries, it didn't mean he felt the pain any less. 

So when a stray bullet found the space two inches beneath his right shoulderblade, he wasn't exaggerating the gritted shout of pain through his teeth. 

It was shallow, thank god, but it burned like hell and by the time the wave of guards were all splayed on the floor, the edges of his vision were dotting in bursts of black. 

He staggered a foot before sucking in a breath, forcing himself to straighten up. The Commandos would fucking kill him if they found out he got shot. Either that or worry, and Steve would actually prefer the former. Whatever didn't have him bleeding all over everyone else. 

"Thompson!" He shouted, leaning on the wall for a half-second longer before pushing off, hooking the shield on his back to cover any blood. Or the chance of being shot in the back again. 

Light footsteps bounded down stairs and curious blue eyes took in the damage, stepping over bodies on his way to the middle of the room with this _look_ on his face and shit, his shoulder fucking throbbed--

"Where the hell were you?" Steve snapped and Thompson finally stopped, looking up. His stupid pouty mouth stayed shut though. Not so much as a smart comment and Steve couldn't have that, not when the pain seering his skin was this asshole's fault. 

There were two effective ways to make a point, with fists or words, and Steve was way too goddamned tired to be hitting anything else right now. Instead he stalked right up to Agent Thompson and his mussed blonde hair and the cloudy-blue eyes, stopping with their chests inches apart and eyes on fire as he pushed inside personal space bubbles and hissed right in Jack's pretty face,

"You fucking left me down here by myself? I’ve always had my six covered--" _Bucky's insistent protection, Steve couldn't imagine ever getting shot in the back_ , "-- and you’re the first asshole who insists on changing that." Their faces were close enough Steve might go cross-eyed, but he had a couple inches on the steely gaze so it was entirely worth the proximity that had Jack's next exhale ghosting over Steve's skin. 

Thompson glared right back, puffing himself up an inch taller like that would make the slightest difference, pink mouth twisting in a sneer.

"Figured you're so big and bad you don't need somebody holding your hand.” 

It struck a bit of a nerve - the person who usually covered his six did occasionally hold his hand too, and that person wasn’t here to do either and really, Steve’s shoulder hurt like fuck and he wasn’t in the fucking mood to deal with Thompson’s bullshit. 

“How do you think I got so big and bad? Soldiers--” Steve jabbed an accusing finger into Thompson’s chest gear, mocking tone dropping into dead seriousness as he held the cloudy-blue gaze and articulated each word slow enough to count Jack’s breaths in between. “--help. each. other.” 

A moment of sparking, angry lightning, gazes locked and jaws set, tipping on the edge of some kind of explosion, only he couldn’t afford a fight right now, not like this. So instead Steve shook his head, slow and demeaning, little smile of disappointment as he backed a step away, and another, Jack’s eyes unblinking on his. “This is below even you, Thompson.” 

Hardening, gritting teeth and Steve spun on a heel, stalking for the closest door without turning to see if Thompson might actually _follow_ this time.

 

“The hell was that, breaking off from the team on your own?” 

Steve sighed. He hadn’t even gotten a word in before the Commandos were lighting into him. It was a little odd, because they weren't usually this forceful with him. They still listened to him unquestionably with the utmost respect, but Morita and Jones fuming at him was nowhere near normal. 

Normal was the Commandos joking amongst themselves, amused side-eyes and light-hearted jabs while _Bucky_ went hoarse from yelling. But the absence was loud, loud in a way that Steve couldn't imagine what they'd done if Bucky'd left back during the war. Who'd be there to talk Steve outta his stupid ideas? 

Apparently that same thing was on every one else's mind because Jim had barely snapped his mouth shut on a sigh before Monty brought up the unspoken again. 

"You’re lucky Barnes ain’t here, he’d rip you a new one."

"Yeah, well," Steve shrugged one side, adjusting the straps on his chest to take some of the weight off his shoulder. "Barnes ain't here, so."

"So you act like a reckless shit?" Dugan crossed his big arms over his chest, bowler dipping as he lowered his gaze on Steve. "He’d snipe me in my sleep I let anything happen to you."

"I can take care ‘a myself," Steve pointed out, carefully rolling his stiffening shoulder and looking away to hide the wince of pain, digging through his tactical belt for the distraction. "Sides, not like it was for nothin’."

The collapsible metal glove glinted threatening in the lowering sunlight, and suddenly all tension was dropping away as faces lit up and the Commandos flocked closer in curiosity. 

 

Thompson watched them poke at the thing, oo-ing and aww-ing. Even Yauk and Ramirez were in the huddle, debating ideas as Rogers stood proudly, taller than most everyone, shoulders still stiff from earlier. 

Carter broke from the group first, skirted the edges and made her way over to him with a cautious ease. They were far enough from the group that no one listened or turned around as she stopped beside him and lowered her voice. 

"Are you alright?" 

"Yeah, I..." He fumbled, cheeks heated as he stared down at her boots. "Thanks." 

"Did the same thing any one of us would’ve." 

Jack snorted, glancing up as Rogers burst into a happy laugh, hand over his stomach, and couldn't help but mutter, "Not anyone."

Peggy made a serious sound of disagreement, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear as she followed Jack's gaze. 

"Why can’t you two get along? I think you'd be lovely friends if you tried--"

"Let's talk about something besides Rogers for once, alright?" He gave her a grim, tight smile and she sighed, thankfully falling quiet as the Howling Commandos began to break apart in random chatter. Steve tucked the metal hand away and someone started up a jeep engine, 

Jack dropped a heavy hand of soldiers' gratitude to Carter's shoulder, then they were all headed back to the plane that'd brought them. 

 

"Aww, Pegs, it was so wonderful to see you." Falsworth pulled her into a hug and Dernier latched onto them both, evoking a laugh out of the rest of the crowd. 

"You keep an eye on our boy, you hear?" Dugan tugged into a hug of his own and Steve rolled his eyes. He didn't get in _that_ much trouble. 

"Keep in touch," Morita reminded and Steve sighed loudly, throwing up a hand. 

"You like my girl better 'an me," he complained, although he couldn't mean the comment less, their harassments were betrayed by the affectionate looks they gave at goodbyes. The ongoing show with Peggy was only half-put on, he never doubted their loyalties in a moment. 

And Peggy played along easy too, beaming innocently as she shrugged at the comment. The SSR agents were all exchanging befuddled glances and Thompson crossed his arms with a confused point between them. 

"I thought you two weren't a thing."

"Oh, we're not," Peggy insisted, waving a definitely no gesture that Steve made a sound of offense at. 

Before tugging her in at the shoulder and placing a noisy kiss on her temple, just for the eye roll and little shove it'd ensure. 

"She's still my best girl though," he insisted and it was met with the exact exasperation he'd imagined, planted hand on his chest shoving him off and twinkling eyes to match her teasing words. 

"No wonder they like me better."

"Aw, do I get a kiss too?" Jones batted his eyelashes and Peggy threw her head back in a barked laugh. 

"Hell no." Steve shook his head through the barreling laughter of his boys, which the agents took as a cue to board the plane home, a sudden reminder that they'd all be apart again in moments. 

Faces sobered up as they looked around at each other, most everyone to go separate ways until they could all meet again. Which would hopefully be for Thanksgiving at the end of the month, so long as no one got in too much trouble before then. 

"Well," Falsworth finally interrupted the silence, clapping a hand on Dernier's shoulder beside him. "-carry one home to Barnes for us, tell him we missed him desperately."

"Oh I will. Tell him you missed him, that is. Not kiss him..." Steve trailed off, flushing red as everyone burst into a final round of laughter and hugs (Steve careful to avoid his shoulder being smacked, shield still thankfully turtleshelling his back), waving hands as Peggy started for the plane behind them. 

"We'll miss you Miss U!" Dugan shouted through cupped hands and Peggy groaned, Steve cackling with a final wave goodbye as he boarded the plane behind her. 

Peg beelined straight for the back, sitting down across from Thompson, low move because she knew he wasn't going back there with Jack's bitter expression. 

He plopped down in the front with a sigh, pulling the metal glove out of his pocket for inspection while Carter and Thompson murmured some heartfelt sounding story in the back of the plane. He didn't catch much but for _white flag_ and _tryin to tell that story since I got home from war_ , but he wasn't all that interested anyway. Let Peggy suddenly get a soft spot for the asshole, Steve couldn't risk that when there was a very painful spot under his shoulder blade as a reminder. 

Speaking of which, he'd have to pull that bullet out before he went home. If it was still lodged, anyways. He'd wait til they got back to the SSR, properly treat it there. 

In the meantime he could try to figure out what the hell kind of metal contraption this was. Not that he knew anything about metals or anyone that--

Wait. Steve shifted, curve of the shield digging into his lower back. _He_ may not know much about metals and their properties, but he sure as hell knew somebody who did. Besides, it'd been awhile since he last saw Howard, it was high time he was due for a visit. 

 

~*~*~

 

The moment she got back to the Griffith, hiding the file and vial of blood was the first order, making sure they were safe for her visit to Howard’s tomorrow. But in the meantime, she’d spent the past forty-eight hours with brawling, loud men and she’d really love a conversation with sweet, lovely Angie before she collapsed in bed. 

A quick check of her hair in the mirror - she really aught to change into a nice dress, but it was just Angie, there was something too...official about changing just to see her. There weren’t bloodstains anywhere, and it wasn’t as though she had to look formally _nice_.

One swipe of lipstick later and she was knocking on Angie’s bedroom door, calling out softly.

“Angie? Are you there? It’s Peggy.” 

A pause, no answer. Another knock, but not so much as running water or a radio. She was out? And cutting it close, curfew was in an hour. 

Where would she be? Did she have a _date_? 

Peggy furrowed her eyebrows, glancing up and down the hallway. The idea of Angie going on a date made her blood simmer under her skin. It was just that...not very many men would be _worthy_ , what if she was treated badly or, or something happened?

She didn’t even know Angie was looking to be dating, had no idea where to start with who or who would even _know_ \--

Bucky. Bucky would know. 

So fifteen minutes later she was knocking on another door, this one with music spilling under the crack. A soft laugh between singing trumpets - that was distinctly female. So he had company over while Rogers was gone, not at all surprising. Maybe she aught to announce her presence so he wasn’t caught by surprise and potentially ruined his date, but Bucky’d open the door for anyone. To be fair, there was a gun on the shelf next to the door that he always kept within reach and it wasn’t even quite dark yet, so she shouldn’t be all that surprised when the door swung wide open without a single inquiry first. 

“Peggy!” Bucky’s mouth popped open, eyes crinkling in a smile under his _extremely_ disheveled hair. Pieces hanging over his forehead and sticking up in different directions and the top three buttons of his shirt were undone, sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a slight sheen of sweat dripping off his temple, feet bare to complete the look of utter _wreck_.

Apparently she’d interrupted more than she thought. She was fully prepared to scramble through her question and hurry back to the Griffin before Bucky’s gal saw her and started asking questions, or worse, she saw a glimpse of more of Bucky’s love life than she was really looking to. 

But Bucky didn’t seem fazed in the _least_ , stepping aside to let Peggy in past him. She stood rooted in her spot with her eyebrows furrowed, because the jazz music and sweaty appearance spoke just fine, thank you. But Bucky kept on smiling and chatting away. “You guys are back already? Find what you need? Steve isn’t home yet, he still at the office?”

“Um,” she responded eloquently, hung up on the clicking sound of heels in the kitchen because it was not like Bucky Barnes to ignore his… _guest_ , even for so much as a moment. She’d heard the stories plenty. 

He was too sweet to shoo her away though, so maybe that’s why he was still standing here, so she really aught to get her question out and go. 

“Yes, we’re back, I stopped by Angie’s place to see her but she’s out...do you happen to know if she's been seeing anyo--”

Peggy cut off mid-sentence, mouth still open and eyes going wide as she looked over Bucky’s shoulder, his dame stepping into sight. 

Only that was the last person Peggy’d been expecting. 

“Angie?” She managed, voice half-an-octave higher than usual. 

Bucky’d charmed _Angie Martinelli_? She’d never thought--

Jesus Christ, she’d just--

“Pegs! You’re back!” Angie broke into the widest smile, crossing the distance between them with that bounding, bouncy step and Peggy was still frozen in spot, taking in the sweat on Angie’s hairline, the rumbled skirt of her dress, lips paler than usual like her lipstick had been all wiped off. 

_Great Mary Mother of God_ \--

Martinelli circled her arms around Peggy’s waist before she could stop her, squeezing her tight with little hands between her shoulderblades and she was so goddamn enthusiastic this was making absolutely no sense. 

Peggy closed her arms around Angie’s back and hugged her back lightly, missing Angie’s kicked up foot in her confusion. 

By the time Angie let go and bounded back to her feet Peggy was feeling more befuddled than ever. 

“I didn’t know you two…” she started, waving a hand in place of the words she really didn’t want to say, but Bucky just broke into the biggest grin, grabbing said hand and dragging Peggy inside. 

She started to protest the moment the door closed behind her, but then Angie’s arm was around her waist, guiding her to the living room. 

“Oh Peg, you just _have_ to see. You don’t mind showing her, do you Brooklyn?”

“Mmm, I suppose not. I mean we do put on one hell of a show…”

“Uh, uuhm. I really. I really should be going,” Peggy stammered, trying to yank free because _what the everloving--_

“Oh c’mon Peg, stay for just one dance? We really do need critics at some point.” Angie gave her her best hopeful smile and Peggy blinked owlishly. 

“Dance…?”

“You remember what I told you about Brooklyn helping me with my double-act?” she continued, sitting Peggy down on a stool and striding into the center of the living room floor, where they’d pushed the couch aside for extra room. 

“You told her?” Bucky accused teasingly, adjusting the needle on the record player while Angie straightened out the strap on her heels. 

“Course I did,” Angie scoffed and Peggy ran back through every conversation they’d had for the past two weeks--

A double-act...the dancing and singing numbers that Angie’d been auditioning for with no luck, until she’d found out Bucky could dance and asked him to do a double with her, which always had higher chances of winning a show…

Bucky met Angie in the middle of the floor, jazz pouring out behind them, and instantly swung her into a spin, skirt flying with a beaming smile.

They’d been dancing. Just dancing. 

This wasn’t a date, they weren’t sweating for...nefarious reasons, they’d simply been practicing their show by _dancing_ and lord almighty Peggy had judged that so entirely wrong she couldn’t help the burst of laughter that escaped her mouth. She covered it with a quick hand but Angie still shot her an amused glance,

“That bad?” she managed at the end point of another spin and Peggy quickly shook her head, lowering her hand back down.

“No, it’s lovely, you both look wonderful.”

“Gee, thanks Peg,” Bucky crowed and Peggy rolled her eyes, settling more comfortably on the stool. 

It really was a good number, the parts of it that they’d choreographed so far. They stopped a little past half-way through the song, giving an aborted bow and curtsey, then Angie was bounding back to her side and Bucky was wiping more sweat off his forehead. 

Well, she hadn’t been so relieved to be wrong in a very long time. The idea of Bucky and Angie being together like _that_ was not a pleasant one, but it was obvious by the easy way they moved together and the easier way they broke apart, it wasn’t that kind of relationship. Thank _god_.

Not that Bucky wasn’t - begrudgingly, she’d admit - a fairly decent fella, and he’d probably be swell to Angie, she just. Did not appreciate that mental image at all. 

“Hey Carter, I’mma go call the office, make sure Steve made it in safe. You mind taking a round with Ang?” Bucky was already striding for the door and consequently phone downstairs, wiping his face with the bottom of his shirt and flashing a flat, sweaty stomach that both of them cocked eyebrows at and turned to each other with amused glances. 

“We’ll be just fine here, Barnes,” Peggy called back, looking straight at Angie the whole time. Ang cocked an eyebrow with her smile, offering a hand to get Peggy off the stool. 

“I have to warn you, I didn’t quite pick up the choreography from just that first time,” she teased and Angie threw her head back in a laugh, guiding Peggy to the center of the floor and carefully positioning her hands on Angie’s waist for her, pretty smile even brighter from this close. 

“Don’t worry English, legs like yours you’ll pick this up faster than Brooklyn did.” 

 

Bucky shook his head as he closed the door behind him, smile on his face as the sound of twin heels spinning drifted into the distance behind him. He’d barely refrained from making a “fondue” joke earlier, although from the look on Peg’s face she might’ve passed out at the insinuation. He knew exactly what was going through her head when she saw them both, even if Angie was oblivious he’d just _had_ to play along. The look on Peggy’s face was way too fantastic to not to. 

Although he was glad it’d been cleared up just as fast, because as lovely as Martinelli was, he didn’t need _Peg_ thinking they were a thing too. 

The dancing was fun though, much more than he’d thought it be. They hadn’t added in words to the routine yet, that was the part he was much more concerned for. Sure, he’d sung in the shower his whole life, sung Steve to sleep on the bad nights of coughing and tossing-turning. Sung around the campfire with the Commandos. But that was a whole different ballgame than singing on the stage, and letting Angie down was about the last thing he wanted to do. 

Because no matter what Steve said, Bucky’s voice wasn’t _that_ good. Speaking of Steve...

Bucky hummed to himself while he dialed the SSR office number. He wasn’t supposed to know it, let alone have it memorized, but whatever. He needed to know Steve was okay. 

 

Thompson was bucking his feet about the goddamn _placement of pictures on the board_ and Steve was trying to reason with him about the graft photos being more related to the Russian experiments than the metal glove, but Thompson just wasn’t seeing reason and Sousa was sighing loudly and trying to reason with them both when the phone suddenly went off, shrilly interrupting their argument in the otherwise-abandoned SSR floor. 

Daniel was closest from his spot at the desk - he and Thompson were still stabbing fingers at the board in the corner - so he picked it up while Jack’s jaw clicked in anger and he glared across the space between them, which Steve was happy to return. 

Right until Sousa’s voice interrupted his thoughts about fists on sharp cheekbones.

“Sergeant Barnes! It's Daniel.” 

Steve perked up instantly, glancing from Sousa back to Jack. Thompson was giving him this undecipherable look that was at least 14% scorn, eyebrow raised like he was thinking back to every single thing the Howling Commandos had said about Bucky. 

Which had been a lot. 

“Yeah, Steve's here.” Daniel paused, glancing over at them and Steve straightened his tie, starting across the space between them to take the phone call. Bucky’d called his work, he must really be as worried as he’d said. Actually, Steve would usually be home by now, but the three of them had decided to organize the information they’d gotten and Thompson had said something about making sure Sousa was in the loop - which was strangely considerate of him and it wasn’t like Steve would disagree with that. 

“No, he's not missing any limbs, still just me in that club. For now.” Daniel laughed, a chimy-echo on the other end of the phone line as Bucky did the same. Jack was still looking fairly chagrined, probably at the fact that Sousa knew Bucky and he didn’t. Or maybe just because he was bitter that anyone could be friends and have conversations and enjoy themselves without him. 

“We're actually working on something, but I'll let him know you called.” He promised into the phone and Steve was reaching to take it from him when Sousa clicked it back in the receiver. Steve made a sorrowful sound that Daniel shook his head and smiled at, then Jack decided to open his stupid mouth and ruin the moment. 

“You can talk to him later,” Thompson snapped and Steve froze, straightening from Daniel’s desk slowly, turning on Jack with the most pissed-off glare he could manage.

“Unless you think this _Barnes_ character can help determine why the Russians are developing a process to graph metal to human bones?” He tacked on and Steve glowered, stalking back across the space between them and moving the goddamn picture of the metal glove one last time. 

“He’s probably got more sense to say than you do,” Steve shot back and Daniel sighed heavily in the background. 

“Gentleman, would it kill you to get along--”

“It just might,” Thompson spat with a glare, the exact same time that Steve answered a sharp, “Might mean less bullets in shoulderblades.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Can we get back to working?” Steve snatched a marker off the board’s shelf and drew a heavy line from the metal-grafts pictures (from the files that Dugan’s team had found in the warehouse) to the photo they’d taken of the metal glove sitting on Daniel’s desk. “So they’re both metal, and that’s the only connection we’ve got. There’s no way to test if they’re the same metal unless we get ahold of someone with the grafts, which we don’t have.”

“We can let the geeks downstairs examine the glove, tell us what kinds of properties--”

“I’ve got someone much more equipped to do that than some generic scientists,” Steve interrupted, making Jack’s expression cloud over even darker. “I can head to Howard Stark’s place tomorrow, y’know, the leading scientist genius of our country? I’m sure he’d be happy to look at it for me.” 

Thompson shifted his weight, snatching the marker out of Steve’s hand, words all but spitting now they were biting so hard. 

“Funny, for a guy with so many connections your team sure spends a lot of time talking about your _Barnes_ friend instead.” 

“What would you know?” Steve snapped, snatching the marker back, and if he’d been paying attention to anything but how much he wanted to bruise Jack’s sharp jawline, he’d have heard Sousa get up and crutch his way over. 

Because then the marker was being taken from his hand again, but by a very-tired looking Daniel instead of Jack. 

“You two are impossible,” he sighed and Steve barely bit back the growl as Jack crossed his arms over his chest and insisted that no, it was just Steve who wasn’t cooperating. 

Bullies, Steve hated bullies more than anything and Thompson was such a goddamn bully Steve could seriously---

He was still pissed as hell, wound tighter than a brand-new yo-yo as he stomped up the stairs to his apartment, cursing Thompson in his head and wishing his shoulder would stop fucking throbbing. An hour of bitter disagreements and Sousa’s tired interference and they’d gotten next to nothing done, besides Jack finally relenting that Steve could take the sample to Stark, only per Sousa’s soft, gentle insistence woven in with the logic of _it’ll help the case the most Jack, you know that._

And he’d actually listened, which was amazing, because Steve’d started coming to the conclusion that maybe Thompson was just deaf and that’s why he was such a goddamn ass about everything and refused to listen--

But he listened to Sousa just fine. It wasn’t fair. 

Steve wiggled his key in the lock and shouldered open the door, instantly regretting the movement when it sent a vibrating tremor right into the place he was already throbbing. 

Cursing out loud now, Steve dropped his overnight bag beside the door, shoving off his jacket to its rung and loosening his tie roughly, kicking off his shoes a little violently as Bucky finally rounded the corner, popped into sight. 

“Hey…” he said tentatively, leaning on the wall, hands shoved in pockets and hair curling damp over his forehead like he’d just taken a shower. 

“Hi,” Steve grit out, pulling his tie all the way off to toss atop his bag. He’d deal with it in the morning. 

“You okay?” Bucky asked softly, still unmoving against the wall. His tone may have been gentle, but the crystal eyes were flooded with worry and really, he didn’t deserve that, not when they hadn’t seen each other in two days. 

“Yeah, sorry, I’m.” He ran a tired hand through his hair, probably fucking it nine ways to Tuesday but he could care less right now. “I’m fine, there’s just this _Jack ass_ at the office I swear I’m gonna punch one’a these days…”

“Ah, hey now, none of those Little Steve thoughts, yeah?” Bucky broke into a little smile, finally starting forward to loop an arm around Steve’s ribs, squeezing him a little tight as he guided them towards the kitchen. “Can I get you something to eat? Commandos feed you fine?” 

“Dernier’s cooking still sucks,” Steve offered and Bucky’s smile lit up brighter and realer this time, sitting Steve down on the closest stool. It really was a goddamned shame Bucky couldn’t come with him, he loved those boys just as much as Steve did. “Which reminds me, we’re both invited to Jones’ place for Thanksgiving.” 

“Really? That’s great. I’m pretty sure the diner’s closed, but let me make sure Ang can take my shift either way.” 

“How is she doing? Nothing disastrous happen while I was gone?” _Like you getting harassed in the diner again,_ Steve added in his head, although if he said that out loud he'd probably get punched, which was not the greatest way to spend his first night back.

“Nope. I think she missed talking to Peggy, but otherwise it’s all been good at the diner.” Bucky sat down a glass of water on the counter next to Steve, a hand landing carefully on his collarbone. “Jeez, Steve, you’re tense.” 

Before he could think to stop him, Bucky was circling behind him, kneading hard thumbs into the back of Steve’s neck. He groaned, dropping his head to his chest because holy shit, that felt amazing. Bucky made a quiet sound of amusement, thumbs pressing warm against the skin under his collar. 

It wasn’t that he got massages often, but he had to admit Bucky was the most incredible occasional-masseuse in the world. The tension drained out of him like boiling water from a pasta strainer and if Steve wasn’t careful he’d go boneless right here and collapse into Bucky’s arms because goddamn, the digging fingers and wound up knots releasing, there wasn’t much better in the world. 

Time slipped away as Steve tipped his head to the side, eyes closed and deep breaths filling his chest to release again even more relaxed. Bucky was humming something softly behind him, dim kitchen light overhead letting him fall under a haze of comfort while the hands on his back worked him over into the best he’d felt in ages--

Right up until Bucky’s thumb slipped beneath his shoulderblade, pressing an inch above destroyed muscle. 

Steve jolted upright with a choked sound he managed to bite down into a hiss. The touch on his back was gone in an instant, Steve’s eyes wide open now as he stared at the empty kitchen and held his breath, praying Bucky wouldn’t make a big deal, that he’d just step out from behind him-- 

“What the fuck was that.” 

It wasn’t worded like a question, and shit, Bucky sounded pissed, voice flat and dead-serious.

“Nothing, just a little sore--” Steve tried, self-consciously shrinking his shoulders closer together. Bucky stalked around him instantly, taking one look at Steve’s face before gesturing at him with an unquestionable hand.

“Shirt, off, now.”

“Jeez Buck, I didn’t know you felt that way abou--” The joking tone fell flat and useless as Bucky crossed his arms over his chest, not even bothering to raise his eyebrows as he glared Steve down and interrupted,

“Do I look like I’m fucking kidding.”

Again, not a question, and Steve had to entirely switch tactics, crossing his arms over his chest in return, tipping his chin up to meet Bucky’s glowering eyes from where he was standing over Steve, petulance lacing the stubbornness.

“I’m not your property,” Steve shot back and Bucky’s jaw clicked, hands tightening into fists in the crooks of his elbows over his puffed-up chest.

“Watch what happens if I have to tell you again,” Bucky warned, low and dark and actually kinda scary. Steve paused, scanning his face and posture and fuck, okay, better to get chewed out than whatever the hell else Bucky planned. 

He looked up at the sky and groaned, but started slowly unbuttoning his shirt. Bucky stood stock-still the entire time it took Steve to get it off, only moving again once he’d shrugged the material over his shoulders, tugged his undershirt off too and tossed them both aside. 

The kitchen air was cold on his bare skin and he hadn’t had to sit under Bucky’s pissed-worried scrutiny since he’d been ninety pounds and sick, so it felt odd to be sitting here on a stool with muscle shifting in the dim kitchen light instead of ribs. 

Bucky circled back behind him and Steve held his breath, bracing himself for the scolding and cursing internally for not wrapping it up properly before he’d left the SSR. 

“Did you get _shot???_ ”

“It’s not bad. Wasn’t even that deep,” Steve countered helpfully, or maybe not that helpful according to the high-pitched noise of frustration out of Bucky’s mouth. For once, Steve was glad he couldn’t see Bucky’s face in reaction right now, he felt bad enough listening to the sounds he was making.

Which were currently hurried breaths, like he was practicing breathing through hyperventilating and Jesus Christ, Steve would feel so fucking awful if he sent Bucky into a panic attack over this. Warm fingertips pressed carefully, gentle on the skin a few inches from the ripped muscle and it probably looked way worse than it was, it’d be just a raised scar this time tomorrow and entirely gone two days from now anyways.

“It’ll heal,” he offered in reminder and apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

“Doesn’t mean it hurts any less, does it?” Bucky snapped, fingertips disappearing and Steve bit back his next remark because unfortunately that was true. He couldn’t remember telling Bucky that, but he must’ve at some point, the bitter way he’d snapped it like he already knew the answer. Then the careful touch was back, tracing the edge close enough to make Steve hiss again. “You took the bullet out yourself?” 

“No, I made Peggy,” Steve sassed sarcastically. “Of course I took the bullet out myself.” 

“Carter wouldda been happy to do it! Jesus Christ Steve, this is why I didn’t want you going to Europe!” Another frustrated sound and at least he’d gotten to the yelling point, that meant he wasn’t getting the silent treatment over this, which was always way worse. A pissed Bucky was much better than a quiet one.

Keeping one hand on Steve’s shoulder like it’d somehow worsen if he didn’t keep his touch close enough, Bucky circled around to his side, forcing Steve to tip his head up again to look him in the eye for the next round of inevitable questioning.

“Who the hell was covering your six?”

“No one. Well, it was supposed to be this asshole from the office, but he flaked on me, so.”

“And what did the Commandos say when they found out you were shot?”

“They...still don’t know?”

“ _Fuck you_ , Rogers. You’re gonna give me a fucking heart attack.” Bucky lifted both hands to rake distressingly through his hair, turning away with another round of curses and Steve bit the inside of his cheek, reaching out a hand to tug the hem of Bucky’s shirt and pull him in for a proper apology, only he was too far away now, pacing the tiles and Steve sighed, having resorting to the much-less-effective words.

“Bucky--”

“Don’t you _“Buckyyy”_ me right now,” Bucky snapped, whipping around with his fingers curled in fists at his sides. Steve took his hand back, sucking in a breath and looking down at his knees. He really should’ve told Bucky, or been more careful, or something. 

When he glanced back up Bucky’d deflated, eyes soft now as he ran a hand over his mouth and took in Steve’s apologetic expression. A tired sigh and Bucky started across the floor for him again, familiar shake of his head as he lifted Steve to his feet. “God, if you weren’t hurt, I’d kick your ass.” 

An arm around his waist, careful of his shoulder as Bucky started them both across the cold tiles. “C’mon, lemme put you to bed.”

Normally he’d protest being manhandled onto a mattress, but the stress lining Bucky’s mouth was enough to make him compliant under the worried hands. Not to mention that he’d taken most of the night shift the night before, and he’d been shot and fighting with Thompson for the past forty-eight hours, he was _exhausted._

So he let Bucky put him to bed, even let him tuck him in all the way with sheets up over his shoulders and tucked under his hips, wrapping him up tight and warm on his side before fluffing the pillow under his head. 

A hand carded through his hair and it was so warm and comfortable his eyelids were already threatening to droop as Bucky plopped down on the edge of Steve’s bed, thumb tracing the edge of his ear, crystal eyes searching his face.

“I aughtta just keep you here,” Bucky mused, fingers scratching at Steve’s scalp. “Tie you to the bedposts and never let you leave.”

“That’s kinky, even for you, Barnes.” Steve managed tiredly, blinking his eyes back open and fighting to bite back a yawn.

Bucky just gave him an unimpressed look, hand in his hair pausing as remnants of the death glare flickered back over his nice features. “And this is stupid, even for you, Rogers.”

He blinked slowly, trying to keep Bucky in focus, missing the tired sigh as a warm hand slid over the back of his neck.

“Just get some sleep, okay?” Bucky ordered, swooping over to place a chaste kiss on Steve's forehead. Bucky's lips were warm, sending tingles down between his eyes as they slipped shut again. 

The fingers in his hair hadn't left yet and Steve let himself drift into the feeling of them, soft as Bucky's expression was now, soft as the careful way he was propped on the edge of Steve's bed, soft as his tired voice speaking more to himself than Steve. 

"God knows I'm not gonna, haven’t for the whole time you’ve been gone and see? I was right." A shaking head and Steve hummed, forcing his eyes back open, everything blurry now, even Bucky's sweet expression. 

"You get sleep t'all?" Steve prodded drowsily, eyelids drooping again. Bucky took a moment before answering, probably hoping Steve would drift off and not hear his answer. 

"Didn’t know whether or not you were safe." A little axiomatic shrug that’d probably break his heart if he was awake enough to see it. "Couldn’t."

"Here, sleep wi’me," Steve lethargically patted the bed next to him, reaching one fumbling, grabby hand for Bucky.

Bucky laughed softly, catching Steve's hand and rubbing familiar, soothing thumbs over Steve’s knuckles. "I’m good, Stevie. You need your rest." 

Personally, Steve was half-sure he got better rest when he was laying next to Buck, but that was something he should probably keep to himself. It was likely from the days of their childhood anyways, some old-ingrained feeling of safety when Bucky laid down beside him, whispering stories under ratty blankets. They were older now, and without the excuse of freezing to death or the danger of the frontlines (or the exhaustion that had them collapsing on each other on the couch the other day, but Steve was still pretending that hadn't happened), sleeping in separate beds was the order of things now. 

If he maybe grumbled something about it being stupid as he slipped under, Bucky only smiled, running the back of his finger affectionately over Steve's jaw line before the compression on his bed disappeared and the last sound he heard was the distant click of lights shutting off. 

 

"Miss Carter! How can I be of service today?" 

"Hello, Mr. Jarvis. I'm here to see Howard, developments on Project Italy, quite fortunately." 

Jarvis swept an arm out to gesture her inside and Peggy dipped her head with a smile. 

"It seems Mr. Stark is a busy man today. He's got another appointment in an hour, an old friend of some sort was all he'd say." 

"Oh don't worry, I'll be quick," Peggy assured, striding through the bright white lab doors. "Howard. How are you fairing?" 

"Better now you're here, can I see that bloodwork? And you're sure this case survived? What number did you say it was? And where did you find it?" Howard practically scurried to her side, scooping folder and vial of blood out of her hands and all, a quick nod at Jarvis before the lab goggles were back on and the project was being spread out over the table. 

"My oh my, you're very enthusiastic about this," Peggy commented, setting her purse down to peer at the rows of documented apoptosis cases. 

"And you're sure this one didn't die?" Howard asked again, carefully setting the blood inside a strange green protective bubble. 

"Quite. It's all in that file. What do you suppose happened to it?" 

"No idea. That'll be a lot easier to determine if we can actually get ahold of the subject." Howard started scratching something down on a pad, dragging a microscope across the table with screech. "You following a lead to find it, right?"

"I'll do my best," she assured, grazing her fingers over the rows of test cards, pausing at one circled in bright green and sat to the side. "Howard? What is this?"

"Case 113? _My_ first successful non-apoptotic living experiment. Got it this morning." He kept right on scratching things down and Peggy's mouth opened, lifting the card to peer over the details. 

"What was it?" 

A pointed finger without lifting his head and Peggy followed the direction, a simple gold cage at the end of the table she hadn't noticed in the clutter. 

A monarch butterfly was fluttering its wings, perched on a flower and Peggy stepped around Howard for a closer look. 

"You're testing on _butterflies_?"

"Hey, I was desperate. And it worked, she hasn't died yet. She hadn't done anything else yet either, but if I can compare her DNA sequences to this one here, we should be able to pinpoint what made them both survive. But Peg, you're really gonna have to find the owner of this blood if you wanna get control over this thing at all. I mean, if Russia's been crating around some immune rabbit, it shouldn't be that hard to find." 

"What makes you think it'll be a rabbit?" Peggy paused, glancing over at Howard and he finally straightened up, lifting his goggles to pick up the green ball, peer down at the blood sample that could change everything. 

"Well I sure as hell doubt it's human."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Caro Emerald's [The Bullet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stdgfwv_SP4)
> 
> ~~Yeah sorry had to~~  
>  Also! All the shit hits the fan in the next chapter, someone's feelings get found out, and the promised plot twist is coming up and we'll also finally get some insight into Jack Thompson hooray!!
> 
> Thank you thank you everyone for reading - love to all comments and kudos xx


	5. take the sweetest rose, crush it till the petals fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! So I've been so busy oh my god I'm so sorry everything is taking so long  
> but here have some drama
> 
> Warnings: internalized period-accurate homophobia, people are assholes, blood, panic attacks / PTSD and there **is** mild content between two people who aren't listed in the relationships for this fic and I promise it's an ends to a means okay
> 
> Disclaimer: there is an anachronism in that DNA testing wasn't popularized in the 1940s, but I figured MCU's all whack and magic anyways. Plus it's Howard Stark, he's totally ahead of his time. 
> 
> Chapter title from the Mills Brother's [You Always Hurt The One You Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS9U75YC-jA)

"I've gotta get to work--"

"It's a thirteen minute walk and you've got nineteen minutes Rogers, you're fine."

"Why do you know that? Why do you know everything?"

"You're askin' that _now_? After the mysterious ability to show up in the exact right place at the right time to haul your ass outta nine million backalley's and you wanna know how I clocked your _work route_?"

"...fair."

"So you have time. Plenty of time. Shirt off, give me _three minutes_ to look it over. And you can be on your merry way." 

He got a heavy sigh, but the shirt came off and Bucky couldn’t complain. The bulletwound had already stitched itself over, wasn’t bloody or raw anymore. It was still tender, enough that Steve flinched as Bucky carefully traced the bruised skin an inch away. 

A tiny sound escaped Bucky’s throat at the reaction and Steve kinda deflated, head dropping guiltily down again. Bucky straightened up, forcing himself to stop freaking out because Steve was right, he’d heal. He was already healing. But it couldn’t hurt to clean it out again, right? 

He set to work with Isopropyl and a cloth, Steve obediently still on a kitchen stool, relaxing comfortably into Bucky’s hands on his skin. How many times had they been here, him stitching or cleaning or something while Steve indulged him, half outta guilt and half outta common sense?

Like always, Bucky’s lip was caught between his teeth while he worked and Steve’s mouth was doing the opposite, rattling off something or another about the office, talking to fill the dead space. Or, the reason why Bucky’d encouraged it early on, so Bucky could hear the levels of pain in his voice.

Which today, there wasn’t much at all.

“Actually, something came up in the Zola case, stuff we found in that warehouse. There wasn’t much, and the alarm went off and everything, but there’s this metal thing...anyways, after a bit of convincing the office agreed to let me take it to Howard’s, get him to have a look at it.”

“Stark? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen _him_. Aw, I wasn’t workin’, I’d love to come with.” He dabbed the dry part of the towel over the wound and Steve did a real good impression of painless that probably would’ve fooled anybody else on the planet.

“Well I have to go back on Friday to pick it back up, wanna come then?” Stevie squirmed on the stool, muscles shifting beneath his skin and Bucky was pretty sure he’d _never_ get used to that. Twenty years tiny and only two big, he had a while yet. At least only the outsides had changed. “I’m sure he’d be happy to show you whatever cool experiment he’s been working on. Fellow science-geek and all.”

“I’m not a science geek.” Bucky flicked the back of Steve’s neck, tampering down a smile at the resulting offended sound and winding himself back to nonchalant. “But yeah, sure. That’d be great.” 

A nod and Bucky patted Steve’s bare hip, signaling him to put his shirt back on while Bucky rinsed out the cloth. He could hear the sound of buttons slipping through holes over the splashing water in the sink and he wasn’t gonna focus on that, because the kitchen probably just echoed, right? It wasn’t like his hearing was weirdly sharp or anything. 

He shook off the thought and wrung out the cloth, making his way back over to Rogers in time to lift the suspenders that’d been hanging by his sides for him, pulling them up tentatively over Steve’s shoulders. “Are these okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. Doesn’t hit direct on anyways.” Steve waved him off, standing up with a screech of the stool, hoisting it one-handed back to its home.

“If you’re sure,” Bucky reiterated, forcing himself to crumple his hands together instead of wringing them like Sarah used to. He wasn’t gonna be a mother hen, he was just looking out for his best guy was all--

Except the look on Steve’s face when he turned back around meant he might as well’ve made soup for breakfast. Which he didn’t. Because he already planned what soup he was feeding Steve for lunch. 

“Oh shh, stop worrying,” Steve chided, two big rough palms coming up to cup Bucky’s cheeks affectionately. Held close and serious, eyes locked as Bucky blinked up to search Steve’s and wished his heart wasn’t pounding out of his chest at the simple touch. The deep voice dropped even lower, real and understanding and _good_ , he’d been gone for days and he’d come back with a bullet in his back, he better fucking let Bucky off the hook for once. “I’m _fine._ ” 

“Alright.” Bucky only conceded because Steve’d be late if he didn’t leave for work within the next thirty seconds and there’d be plenty of time to make sure he meant it after work. Or, actually, on a better idea-- “But you’ll come in to the diner later, so I can make sure you’re _still_ fine?”

Blue eyes softened and Bucky felt like some fretting, petite girlfriend, telling her soldier to be safe as she sent him off to war and Steve just gazed at him all sweet and wonderful and Bucky was melting on the inside, he was, but there was nothing in the world that could get him to take Steve’s hands off his jaw. 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Steve promised, touch dropping after another brief moment and Bucky followed him numbly to the door, face and hands feeling cold as Steve waved goodbye and Bucky shrugged into his blue uniform and straightened the hat on his head and prayed to the powers that be that Steve kept his promise this time.

Except, of course, the world didn’t care and apparently Steve’d miss it for less. It was half past noon and he still wasn’t here. 

Bucky was pacing. Anxiously, probably, and the diner floors were getting shiner with the rapid repeat of his shoes but he couldn’t stop pacing.

Peggy kept shooting him side-glances from her booth and Angie kept furrowing her eyebrows at him and they were both talking in that silent-conversation thing they did that was super annoying - and probably not unlike his and Steve’s communications if he thought about it, but he didn’t want to think about it he wanted Steve to be here. 

Peggy hadn’t seen him. 

Angie hadn't seen him. 

Bucky certainly hadn't. 

He barely refrained from calling the office, but if Steve didn’t show up in another ten then he was calling, period, that nice gal Rose could put him through to Daniel and Bucky could chew somebody out for not keeping an eye on his boy - although it wouldn’t be Daniel, obviously - but he’d find out who was supposed to be covering Steve’s six when he got shot and why the hell he hadn’t come to lunch and--

The diner bell ring and Bucky’s head snapped up for the fourth time in the past twenty minutes, only this time he didn’t curse under his breath and deflate, this time he cursed under his breath and hurried to the door to help Steve with his jacket. 

“Jeez, Buck, calm down. I’m right here, haven’t passed out yet.” Steve rolled his shoulder with a wince and Bucky all but carried him over to Peggy’s booth, muttering the whole way.

“If I die of a heart attack, you better put your goddamn name on my grave as the reason why.”

“Steve, you’re late, you’ve got Mrs. Rogers worrying his lovely hair gray,” Peggy teased, scooting aside her coffee to make room for the one Angie sat down promptly in front of him. 

“Damn right he is, and damn right my hair’s lovely. Ang is there sugar in that?”

“Brooklyn, you know how many times I’ve served USA coffee by now?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Steve, seriously, the hell have you been?”

“At Howard’s, like I told you this morning--” Steve started, hands up to try to calm everybody down, just as a customer made some rude remark to the left and Angie rolled her eyes but hurried off to go help. 

“Howard’s?” Peggy asked incredulously and she sounded way more surprised than necessary because they were all friends with Stark, after all. 

“Yeah, he was weirdly busy with this project wouldn’t talk about. Actually, he asked if I’d ran into _you_ on my way in, Peg.” An eyebrow cocked up in that familiar expression and Bucky crossed his arms over his chest, turning his rapidly-fading-wrath from Steve to Peggy now.

She seemed totally unfazed by their twin expectant stares, made a nonchalant shrug and took a bite of her pie. Steve’s eyes narrowed a little and if he was this suspicious, had been that late, Bucky really should’ve gone with him after all.

“And funny enough, Howard told me to tell you something, Carter.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, cryptic as hell, something along the lines of: _it's not only human but I think I know who?_ And that you should call him as soon as you can.” Two quite-built shoulders with matching intimidating expressions and arms crossed over their chests were staring her down but Peggy just made another noncommittal noise, lifting her head to catch Angie’s attention as she passed with a full tray of dishes. 

“Angie, is there a phone I can use in the back?”

Wait, Peggy was taking Howard seriously enough to call him right _now_? In the middle of lunch hour? What would she be doing talking to Stark in the first place? 

“Honey, we look like a five star restaurant to you? I think there's one a couple blocks down, in that fancy apartment building.” 

“No matter. I'll call when I get back to the office.”

She held out her fork to offer a piece of pie to Steve, who eyed it quite suspiciously. She waggled the fork and he narrowed his eyes, but Bucky nudged his ankle under the table (probably really obviously since he was standing up) and Steve's mouth reluctantly popped open. 

Peggy slid the pie between his lips and Steve huffed, deflating as he chewed. Peggy smiled that winning, pretty one and even Bucky uncrossed his arms. The thing with Howard was probably something ridiculous anyways. After all, it was Peggy, how much trouble could she get into? 

"Sergeant Barnes, would you grab another piece of pie? Steve's eaten most of mine." 

"It was a bite!" Steve protested, muffled with his mouth full. Bucky played along, carefully thumping Steve's good shoulder and sweeping off to grab Peg's favorite. 

"Oh c'mon, it'll be fun! You had a good time dancing, right?" Angie furrowed her eyebrows in that _pleaseee?_ look and Bucky reached over her to set the plate down in front'a Peg. 

"What's this about dancing?" He slid into the booth across from Angie, who'd only just sat down herself so really, the diner would be fine for a moment or two, lunch hour was basically over anyways. 

"Angie wants to go to the movies on Friday," Steve sighed and Bucky made a surprised sound, elbowing the reluctant Steve to wipe that damn look off his face, how often did Rogers get asked on dates?

"I think you guys'll have a great time," he prodded and Peggy offered Angie a bite of pie off her fork too, British accent interrupting before Steve could protest. 

"Oh no, Angie wants all _four_ of us to go to the movies." 

"Even better!" Bucky winked at Carter and she rolled her eyes, then Steve was shoving him outta his booth with a grumble about not getting fired. 

Angie reluctantly followed, still with a mouthful of pie as she waved goodbye to Peggy and Steve, sweeping empty plates up and headed for the kitchen. 

"We should be getting back to work too." Peggy tossed down her napkin, standing and grabbing her purse as she gestured for Steve to follow before waving goodbye in the direction of the kitchen. Steve hesitated, lingering at the edge of the booth for a moment, torn between walking with her and waiting to say goodbye to Bucky. 

“I’ll meet you back at the office?” She offered and the grateful brief smile was all the confirmation she needed before her heels were clicking on the way to the door. It’d be better for her to call Howard back without Steve around anyways, he and Barnes were getting much too curious for her liking.

“Mr. Jarvis, would you patch me through to Howard?”

“Oh he’ll be quite glad you called, Miss Carter. He’s been fretting around and mumbling to himself for the past hour...Mr. Stark! Miss Carter’s on the line!”

Peggy tapped her foot against the side of her desk, glancing between Daniel’s desk and the empty one next to his. Where the hell were Sousa and Thompson? Everyone else was accounted for but Steve and those two - it wasn’t like Daniel to miss work, and it wasn’t like Thompson to eat lunch somewhere besides the office. 

If she wasn’t busy investigating two other cases, she might have to look into that. 

A crackle came over the line as the chord of the phone adjusted into a new hand and Peggy parted her lips to say hello but didn’t get a single sound out before Howard was practically shouting into the other end of the wire. 

“ _Sergeant James Barnes of the one-hundred-seventh infantry_.”

He sounded like he’d ran all the way to the phone to say that, words rushed and breathy but that was about all of the meaning she’d registered out of that. 

“What?” She at least had the sense to straighten up, plant both feet on the ground. What had Steve said? That Howard told him _it's not only human but I think I know who?_

“I need you to get a sample of his blood,” Stark continued and Peggy put up a hand to stop him, even if he couldn’t see her over the phone, voice interrupting demandingly enough to get his trap to shut for a brief moment. 

“Let me repeat myself. What?”

“Hear me out. You said the people who had this were the Russians, right? That's what threw me initially. But we all know Stalin and Hitler had some sort of thing going at one point, the Russians and the Germans were working together. So once I found out the subject was human, I was going over where the Germans could have experimented with this. And the easy answer? POW torture camps. _So_. Name me a German POW torture camp where every single man who was taken to the back to be tortured died a terrible, awful, unknown death. Except, of course, for _one_.”

A sole survivor. She knew that story. 

She knew that camp. 

“...Azzano.” It was on her list after all. 

“See?” Howard’s voice dropped from rushed-scientist to cautious-friend and that’s when the implications of what he was saying finally sunk in. “It's the only thing that makes logical sense, Peg.” 

Azzano. It was one of the camps she’d been investigating. She’d figured their mutual friend and soldier might have some insight to offer, she’d been keeping an eye on him from a professional standpoint, but. But Howard was suggesting - _sole survivor_ \- and that--

“No, Howard.” She shook her head, curls bouncing around her cheeks, trying to keep her voice calm and probably sounding scarily detached. “No, there is no logical sense about _Bucky Barnes_ having that poison running through his veins.”

She’d been chasing leads. They knew what this weird formula did to everything, they knew it killed and destroyed flesh. They knew that one subject had survived. But. It. _Couldn’t._

This was _Bucky_. Steve’s best friend. Her reluctantly-admitted friend as well. Angie’s new dance partner. He was funny and crazy and sweet and caring and kind beneath the veneer of nonchalant debonair casanova and not one bit of that added up to a man who had some unknown poisoned substance running through his veins. 

Howard was friends with Bucky too. They always talked science-y inventions with each other, he’d fitted Bucky with his own customized 1911 during the war and he had to know too, what that would mean, if Bucky had that drug inside him for that long--

Actually, it’d mean. It’d mean Peggy’d never known him when he _hadn’t_ been poisoned with whatever the hell that formula was. 

Stark sucked in a breath on the other end of the line, voice careful and tinged with a melancholy Howard could get sometimes that was frankly quite heartbreaking. 

“I know nobody brings up the fact that he was tortured for months. I know he makes it real easy to forget. But...Peggy.” Softer, lower, like he didn’t want to say the next words and Peggy didn’t exactly want to hear them either. “There's a chance it's him.”

Bucky did make it easy to forget he’d been a prisoner of war. None of them saw a single crack in the facade. There was a chance Steve did - maybe Bucky had nightmares, maybe Steve rubbed his back until he fell back asleep. Or maybe Bucky hid that even from his best friend.

How much else had Bucky been hiding?

“No,” she said again, just about ready to hang up the phone. “No, I think you’re _fishing_ , you just want answers because that’s who you are and this is just the easiest conclusion--”

“Easy? _Easy_ , Peg? There’s nothing easy about realizing that one of your few friends may in fact have a lot more shit going on than anybody knew. This isn’t easy, this is about the hardest decision I’ve come to, the worst possible conclusion-- If I’m right, if it’s Barnes? Our lives are gonna be hell. You get that, right?”

Peggy blinked. Howard’s tone had surprised her, but really, it shouldn’t’ve. Bucky was one of those people, like his best friend, that everybody who knew him either loved him or fell in love with him. Howard and Bucky were friends, the very idea of this had to be painful to him too.

But they couldn’t just ignore it because it hurt. She couldn’t just hang up on Stark because he’d said something she didn’t want to hear. Couldn’t hear. 

If it was true, if there was even the _smallest_ chance it was true, they owed it to Bucky to find out and help him, not get so worked up it turned into shoddy police work.

Logic. They had to get logical about this or else the emotions would be so overly amplified they’d be blinded to facts and truth and--

“Zola was involved with both,” She finally offered and Howard deflated on the other end of the line. He’d convinced her and neither of them wanted it to be true but they had to try. Had to make sure it wasn’t Bucky. They owed him that much, at least. 

She’d read the file herself, Zola had been one of Bucky’s torturers at Azzano. Zola was the head on the Russian projects that the SSR was chasing after. And after all, she’d followed the trail for the original formula from Azzano. 

Where did that leave them now? Where did that leave any of them?

“What are we supposed to do?” 

“I have to be sure about this, Peg. I need a sample of his blood.” 

Peggy groaned, tipping her head back and staring at the ceiling because blood samples weren’t easy to take from anyone, let alone someone you were friends with.

“Can't I get you like a hair or something to test DNA?” 

“Not enough evidence. Not solid. Besides...if we're gonna see if this shit is still inside him, I need a blood sample anyways.” 

Howard didn’t offer an apology for the curse word - so many men did around her, even him - but honestly, she was proud she hadn’t let one slip yet either. It was Bucky, after all. Whom wasn't exactly going to surrender his arm for a random blood sample for her. 

“Well how do you recommend I go about getting one?” This was still unreal. But if they could somehow prove it _wasn’t_ Bucky, she was all on board with that idea.

“I dunno, Peg. You're creative. Use your imagination.” 

Her imagination. Her imagination couldn’t’ve dreamed that Brooklyn’s favorite sniper was the subject she’d been studying all along. But now her imagination was going to have to prove it wasn’t, or else the world might flip upside down. 

They didn’t know what it’d mean if Bucky had this. They didn’t even know what the formula did. Just that it likely _wasn’t_ intended to kill, only that many of the subjects died when they were trying to achieve whatever the true purpose was. Which they only achieved with Bucky. 

Maybe. 

“Hey Peg, what was that about?” 

Her head snapped up as Steve plopped down on the edge of her desk and Peggy sat the phone back in its cradle, clicking loud enough to make her flinch but _bloody hell_ , Steve was sitting there all curious and innocent and his best friend since childhood may be a modified German experiment petri dish and how could she look either of them in the eye?

“Nothing,” she managed, feigning checking her nails while Steve stared her down but she couldn’t meet those blue eyes when she was one of only two people on their side who might know the truth about Bucky Barnes. 

What if it was him? What if he was the special subject that warehouse had been storing information on? Was Zola...was he still tracking Bucky somehow? Watching his experiment? They could all be in danger at anytime, but what kind of bullseye did Bucky have on his back if it were true--

“Peg? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You alright? Peggy?”

She dragged out of her thoughts again, the briefest of glances up at Steve’s face and he was so worried about _her_ , and Bucky’d just been fretting around the diner worried about _Steve_ for whatever odd reason and they should all be protecting Bucky right now, keep him tight and safe between Peggy’s gun and Steve’s, but how could she possibly suggest that without giving everything away and if it _weren’t_ true--

“Rogers!”

They both spun to the other end of the bullpen, where the sauntering Jack Thompson held up a file, his cocky head tipping condescendeningly. She’d never been more glad to see Jack Thompson in her life.

“I’m getting real concerned about your motives when every time I walk in this building you’re talking to Carter. And I’m starting to think she’s not the one encouraging the gossip either.” Thompson’s gaze flitted to hers for a single moment and Peggy could only stare wide-eyed in surprise because was he admitting something wasn’t her fault? And that she might actually be doing her job? 

Sure, she’d just saved his life overseas, but she hadn’t expected the bitching-misogynistic treatment to end in a day. 

So maybe...maybe he really had seen her, the real her on the battlefield with Steve’s and Bucky’s boys--

Bucky. She had places to be that didn’t include whether Jack’s sneer was aimed at her or not. 

“Actually, that reminds me, I had a witness at the docks I had to talk to, I’ll be back in just a few…” She grabbed her purse and slid past the stare-down between both blondes, headed for the door before Thompson could think to stop her. 

Now she just had to figure out a way to get a sample of blood before _Bucky_ stopped her. 

 

“You know, Jack, I’m getting a little sick of the cold shoulder and barking orders.”

"Well the rest of us are more than a little sick of you getting nothing done." 

"Getting nothing done? You were with me when I found--"

"What? A single, unidentifiable contraption? _Sousa's_ gotten more done than you."

"Hey, hey, don't bring me into this. But are you two seriously going to stand there and fight, can we please get back to work?"

"Be happy to. If Rogers knew what that meant."

"Would it kill you to show a little respect? I'm working for this office too, Thompson, same as you--"

"Nothing about you is the same as me," Jack snapped and Steve opened his mouth to reply (it'd've been a brutal one too, probably crossed all sorts of lines) just as Chief Duly's office door swung open. 

"You ladies done bickering out there? I can hear it from all the way behind this closed door. And before you try and defend who started it, I don't care. Take Sousa's advice for once and get back to work."

Jack opened his mouth and Chief Duly pointed a very serious finger. 

"Both of you. Not another word outta ya." 

The door slammed and Daniel tapped his pen on his desk with that troubled look on his face and one of the agents up front let out a low whistle and Steve didn't stomp back to his desk but it was close. 

 

"Oh _fuck_ \--" Bucky clamped a gravel-dusted hand over his mouth before he even picked himself up off the ground. He was about to spurt an apology for the language because he was pretty sure he heard high heels right before he tripped and fell; only when he looked up the owner of said high heels didn't get an apology out of him but another expletive. 

"Shit, Peggy? I'm so sorry, I didn't see you. Actually, uh, don't really know how I just tripped but Jesus Christ that's humiliating. Don't tell Steve."

Peggy looked torn between laughing and apologizing herself, offering a hand to help him up off the alley ground. It was an odd place to run into someone, the alley behind the diner, especially when the only thing back here was a truck-loading place and the backdoor. 

“What’re you doing back here? Oh, duh, probably came to see Angie,” Bucky rambled, brushing off his hands and reaching to brush off his knees--

Except his pants were torn and his knees were bleeding. Great. Just great. 

“Oh dear, it’s my fault,” Peggy rushed, reaching in her purse and whipping out a handkerchief. “Let me--”

She was already reaching to dab at the blood and Bucky caught her wrist before she could, straightening her back up with a little shake of his head. 

“Hey, no worries. I shouldn’t’ve been so clumsy.”

“I can--”

“Peg, it’s _fine_. I’ve had way worse on the front, I’ll live.” He gave her that debonair sideways smile and she still looked like she wanted to clean him up and jeez, he thought _they_ were the ones with everything in common, not her and Steve. 

“Besides,” he insisted, tucking her handkerchief back in her purse for her. “I’d hate to get your kerchief all bloody. Those things don’t wash out so well, believe me, I know.”

“It really wouldn’t be a hassle,” she argued back in that British accent and Bucky rolled his eyes, gesturing her towards the door. He’d just get a napkin or something, it’d clot ridiculously fast anyways. Actually, it wasn’t bleeding anymore already, but if he kept Peg distracted maybe she wouldn’t notice. 

“Don’t worry about it. C’mon, want me to go grab Ang for you?”

“Oh, um. Sure, I just had a question for her is all…”

“Peggy, you’re allowed to come visit your friend, I’m not gonna judge, jeez. Lemme run get her, you wait out here.” 

Then Bucky was gone and Peggy cursed. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but if she was going to get a sample of his blood it’d have to be from somewhere. At least this time, she got to talk to Angie after, that was a nice plus. 

The next one didn’t have any nice pluses. 

Bucky was free after work and Peggy invited him to go target-throwing with her at the warehouse and it wasn’t like she was going to stick him with a knife or anything, but if she could just barely knick him--

“ _Ow_!” Bucky chirped, pulling his hand back hastily. Peggy forced her eyes wide, dropping the knife back on the table in surprise. 

“I’m so sorry, are you--” she reached for his hand before he could begin to protest, only then his cut-and-bleeding finger was shoved in his mouth and Peggy groaned internally again. 

“Let me bandage that up,” she insisted, indicating for him to give her his hand.

“S’not bad,” Bucky muffled around his finger and Peggy twisted up her expression in vague sympathy, quickly formulating part two of a plan and reaching for the knife again--

Only Bucky took it from her hand before she could see if there was a drop of blood on it. Probably not, it’d been too fast, but _still_.

Then he was giving her a weary look and Peggy held her breath under the sorry smile because goddamnit, she knew this would be difficult but she didn’t think it’d be _this_ difficult.

Bucky was just too quick. 

She cringed the entire time she made the next plan and prayed that it didn’t get cut from any of the waiting staff’s salary, then she was dropping her empty mug a centimeter from Bucky’s hand and one of the shards skipped and cut open the back of his hand exactly like she’d predicted. 

The shattering sound was awful and now Angie was rushing over in concern and Bucky was cursing under his breath but Peggy moved fast enough to grab a napkin and reach for Bucky’s hand, insist this time on dabbing the wound for herself--

Only, _somehow_ , he was faster than her _again._

He already had a napkin pressed to the cut, had his hand held up at his chest and out of reach and a hurt look on his face that was more about pride and confusion than the pain of his hand. 

Peggy let out a frustrated sound that could hopefully be passed off as annoyance over her own clumsiness, which wasn’t clumsiness at all. 

She wasn’t getting anything from Bucky but a slow, wary distrust of her around sharp objects.

“Jeez, Peg, be more careful would you? With your job you'd think…” he trailed off, wrapping his hand up in another napkin and really she did feel bad, she hated having to do this only it was for his _own good_ if only he’d let her _have the goddamn napkin_.

“Peg? Buck? My gosh, are you two alright?” Angie flighted down with her worrying pretty hands and Peggy sighed and picked up a napkin to help clean up the rest of the ceramic shards. 

“Bucky, are you sure you don’t need help,” she tried one last time and he gave her the most _incredulous_ look. 

“No thanks, I’m good. Don’t need you damaging me anymore. Three times in two days, Carter, are _you_ okay?”

“I’m fine,” she managed way more lightly than she felt because _good god_ , she’d like to fucking know if Bucky was in danger or not, she’d like to know if the Russians were still after him or if he had poison in his veins but he was just giving her funny looks and _not cooperating._

 

To be fair, it wasn’t the only part of him not cooperating. 

Bucky’d wiped blood off his knees in the bathroom at the diner and he’d been okay. It was just blood. He’d had worse. 

He wrapped up the slice on his trigger finger and he was alright. It was just a cut. He’d had worse. 

His hands shook as he wrapped up the newest cut in his and Steve’s bathroom back in the apartment and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. It was just a cut. Just blood. 

What the hell was wrong with him? 

It was stitching up too quick. He knew that would happen. Was that what was making it hard to breathe? The realization of what that might mean?

The crash of Peggy’s mug hadn’t sounded like a gunshot, he had no idea why that’s the sound the memory made when he replayed it in his head. 

Just blood. He’d had worse, what the _hell was wrong with him_ \--

“Buck,” Steve suddenly announced from behind him and it wasn’t his fault, he just walked so quiet and Bucky didn’t even know he was home, he hadn’t been prepared and it’d shock anybody, right, only something was wrong with him and--

Bucky jumped. Spooked like a horse, shout ripped from his mouth like a bullet ripped through flesh and the bathroom tipped precariously and maybe he should’ve grabbed the counter but the only thing he could think of was the bright light from Zola’s experiment table and the Germans slicing him open and being unable to hide his face and Bucky put his head in his hands, palms covering his eyes from the goddamned bright light as he sucked a ragged breath into lungs that didn’t work on his command anymore. 

It was just blood. Just a cut. Bullets, even, he knew. Just Steve. 

He was fine. He had to be fine he hadtobefinehadtobefinehadtobefine--

“Bucky?” Steve whispered and he sounded awful, like Bucky was terrifying him and Bucky never wanted Steve to feel like that only a lot of shit had been happening to him lately and he’d been paranoid and he didn’t know if the shit happening was worse or the fact that his body kept pretending shit wasn’t happening and healing too fast and fuck everyone that’s what, fuck them all--

His lips parted around another panicked breath and he had to get it together, because whatever was happening to him Steve probably had it worse because he didn’t _know_ what was going on with Bucky and and

He pried his own hands off his face, forced himself to breathe in through his nose, out through his mouth, stared at clean floor tiles and begged himself not to freak out about the fact that this was not where he’d been three seconds ago, he must’ve stumbled over here and fuck fucking hell, Steve’s socked feet were still standing in the doorway and he hadn’t moved an inch. 

Frozen, he was frozen and silent and he was waiting for Bucky to get a grip on himself and he’d never done that before but then again, this hadn’t ever happened before. It wasn’t like it was a nightmare Steve could talk him through. Bucky’d never freaked during the day and oh _god_ what must Steve think now--

“You okay?” The soft voice ventured, as quiet now as he’d been loud before. 

Why was Steve frozen? Was he afraid if he touched Bucky that Bucky might lash out and hurt him? Was Steve afraid of him? Was Bucky scaring him or was he scared of _Bucky_?

“I'm. I don't--” Bucky stopped and sucked in a breath and he was freaking out more about the fact that he'd freaked out than the initial shout that’d scared him and he still wasn’t breathing right and it felt like he had Steve’s asthma as he rattled a wheezing breath, lifting his head and staring at the ceiling and blinking back tears in his eyes he didn’t remember allowing to prickle there. 

He heard the sound as Steve’s heel hit the floor, sock on bathroom tile and he shouldn’t’ve been able to hear that, but he did, and there was nothing he could do about that now except Steve was cautiously, carefully walking over to him and Bucky had to pull himself together. 

Steve didn’t need to walk so slow. He didn’t need to look so goddamned worried. He didn’t need to hold his breath as he reached out a slow, slow, tentative hand and carefully placed his palm on Bucky’s shoulder, giving him all the time in the world to reject it or move only Bucky just wanted to move closer but he was afraid, afraid to see Steve flinch if Bucky reached for him now, what if Steve flinched or backed up or fear lit up in those beautiful blue eyes so Bucky stayed frozen, very very frozen as he waited and waited and Steve’s hand finally landed on his shoulder. 

Bucky deflated. He leaned into Steve’s touch and apparently that was all the answer and message Steve needed because then big beautiful hands were pulling him close, gathering his shaking body into Steve’s chest.

It was warm and familiar even though he was all strong and solid now and Bucky held on way too tight and gasped against Steve’s shoulder and Steve just stayed quiet and unmoving, arms solid around Bucky's back like Roman pillars and it took another few minutes, but he could breathe again.

 

“Well if it isn’t the Army’s Greatest Troublemakers,” Stark greeted, lifting his goggles and peering down at them from the scaffold he was on top of. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s all him,” Bucky complained, knocking his shoulder into Steve’s with a playful smile. The smile Steve gave back was faded at the edges, worry deep enough in his eyes that Howard wouldn’t see but Bucky couldn’t ignore. 

He was fine now. They’d taken a moment and Steve’d gotten him a glass of water and he hadn’t pressed to ask what it was about, just asked if Bucky’d come with him to Howard’s. 

And Bucky was okay. Really. 

He shifted his smile a little, soothing Steve’s worry what he could and a warm hand landed on his lower back, Steve’s palm pressing into spine and Bucky would be okay with him leaving his hand there for the rest of his natural life but the moment Howard strolled properly into sight it was gone again and Bucky bit back a sigh. 

“Sergeant Barnes! How’ve you been?”

“Fine?” He gave Steve a funny look and Steve waved at Stark with his eyebrows furrowed, an axiomatic hello in case Howard hadn’t seen him standing right there. 

“Good, good. Been enjoying your job at the diner?”

“Word sure gets around, huh?” Bucky glanced at Steve again, who was looking increasingly more confused because Howard was normally stuck to Steve’s side like glue. Actually, there was a part of Bucky that was like 98% sure Howard had a crush on his Stevieboy, but what could you do, it wasn’t like he was gonna call the world’s richest capitalist on being homosexual.

“It does. No concerns then, you’ve been good since you got back? I know adjusting can be hard--”

“It can be, but I’m good, Stark. Thanks for the concern…?"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem. You've been fine too, Rogers?"

"Yeah, thanks for asking. You get anything on that metal glove?"

Metal glove? That was weird. It sounded vaguely familiar, though. Like he'd heard about one in a dream or something? Who knows. 

Bucky decided to wander around the lab while they chatted SSR nonsense. Steve would tell him all the cool stuff later anyways. 

For once, there wasn't a _ton_ of cool stuff in Stark's lab. Steve said he'd been working some top secret shit, maybe he was hiding all that away. 

He ran his fingers over the multitude of lab tables, boring-looking paperwork and a few old inventions Bucky remembered from the last time he'd hung with Stark. 

The only real unique thing he found wasn't even an invention. There was a strange gold cage on the edge of one of the tables, seemingly empty too. 

Bucky lifted the latch to inspect the inside and something flew out in his face, making him duck his head and curse colorfully. 

Stark came running over fast as lightning, but by the time he skid to a stop in front of the table Bucky was already staring wide-eyed at the butterfly that'd landed on his hand and didn't look to be leaving anytime soon. 

"Is that...a monarch? What is a butterfly doing in your lab?" Bucky looked up from the insect on his hand and the orange and black wings flapped slowly. 

"Testing..." Howard trailed off, looking between Bucky and the butterfly and Bucky narrowed his gaze.

"You're testing on poor butterflies? A little desperate, yeah?" 

"A little," Stark muttered, twirling his mustache with a finger and Bucky sighed, lifting his hand towards the cage so the butterfly could fly back inside to its perch. 

"Speaking of which...you mind helping a brother out, Barnes?"

"Depends on what the experiment is." If it was ballistics accuracy testing like last time, he was more than happy to help out. But he wasn't gonna be a Petri-dish-guinea-pig for another scientist, no matter how much he liked them. 

"Well, I've been using blood samples to test some factors that could be real helpful in the near future. Steve's actually hooked up right now, offered another vial so I can test serum against--"

"Sorry, Howard, I don't give my blood away."

"It'll be perfectly safe, I promise--"

"Stark. No."

"Bucky, it'd just be--"

What, a little prick? One needle? Right. Right because he hadn't had enough needles shoved in his body for one lifetime. 

No, thank you, he'd already flipped the fuck out over nothing earlier, he wasn't about to send himself into a more serious version of that. 

"Howard."

"It's for _science_ ," Stark argued, reaching for something in his pocket and Bucky put both hands up to stop him. 

"You stick me with a needle and it's going in your ass, you got it?" 

Howard put both his hands up too and that's when Steve walked back in, looking between the both of them with confusion etched between his eyebrows. 

"Did I miss anything?"

"Nope," Bucky popped the p and closed the gate on the butterfly cage, patting Stark congenially - if a little hard and overly dominant so be it - on the shoulder as he passed. 

Then they were back in the car and Bucky stared at the windshield, running the whole situation through his head because that'd just been _weird._

"Hey, you wanna come to the office?" Steve interrupted his thoughts and Bucky raised an eyebrow, brushing a strand piece of hair off his forehead and back into his pomade. "Figured you could say hi to Daniel, if you wanted too. Before you go back to work."

"Sure." Bucky nodded and turned to stare out the window, praying Steve would keep his mouth shut about everything and thank god, he did. 

 

Steve practically dumped him in Daniel's lap, darting off with something about proving metal congruency and they both watched him throw open the staircase door with concerned looks on their faces. 

Then they were turning back to each other and Bucky groaned exaggeratedly and Daniel laughed and just like that all the tension disappeared. They chatted for a moment about work, Daniel leaning on his crutch and really Bucky'd be fine with sitting down but Sousa hadn't said anything and he wasn't going to assume he knew the man's limits better than he did. 

Which reminded him, 

"Hey, a group of friends are going to the movies on Friday, you wanna come?" 

Sousa glanced back at him from where he'd been scanning a random passerby, some guy with blonde hair like Steve's only with a lot bigger stick up his ass. But then he was gone and slipped from mind as Bucky turned back to Daniel with his arms crossed over his chest and made a questioning sound. 

"Hmm? Oh, uh. I'd love to, but I'm actually going out for drinks with a coworker. He said he wanted to talk some things over, so..." Sousa looked quite guilty about not being able to come and Bucky lifted a hand to wave it off because seriously, he wasn't sure he was supposed to invite more people anyways. 

"No worries, Sousa. Next time, for sure."

"Which, actually. Reminds me." Daniel rolled his lips in, glancing behind them before turning to Bucky again, lowering his voice a few notches with concern etched between his eyebrows and Bucky was sure as hell listening up now. 

"Look, I wasn't gonna say anything, because really, it's none of my business. And I wasn't sure it was yours either, but. You look out for Steve and I figured you've got a right to know. I mean, I wouldn't say if I wasn't getting concerned, actually concerned."

"Yes?"

"It's. There's somebody in the office...I thought it'd fade with time but it's only getting worse and frankly I'm a little worried it's turning to fists soon, or worse, so."

Daniel sucked in a breath and Bucky wasn't gonna be breathing until he finished his speech so he rolled an impatient hand, gesturing Sousa to continue, "Out with it."

"Uh, well. Steve and another Agent are _not_ getting along. I mean at first they were both just kinda dicks to each other but then it turned to glares and yelling and the other day somebody shoved somebody and another agent had to break it up and it's just-- it's getting bad. So keep an ear out, I guess. The Chief lit into them both about it the other day but it's kinda done shit. They're both just...really stubborn. And I'm worried, is all."

Steve had a fucking problem at work and he didn't tell Bucky? Really? After storming into the diner like some suped-up comic character to defend Bucky's honor over some scraggly asshats who smacked his ass? Really? _Really_?

"Well now I am too," Bucky smiled grimly, sucking in a breath and forcing his heartbeat calm. "But thanks, Daniel, I'm real glad you said something. It means a lot. And I'll keep an eye on him; will you too? I know I ask you that in teasing but--"

"Yeah, Sarge. I'll keep an eye on him." Sousa offered him a little, one-sided smile and the honesty in it was relieving as hell, especially when he was still trying to process everything he'd just said. 

"Thank you," Bucky breathed and Daniel clapped a hand on his arm, grim smile of his own as he checked his watched and gestured towards the elevator. 

"I really gotta get going. Thanks for stopping by and inviting me, sorry to ruin it with that, I swear I'm not _always_ the bearer of bad news. You really should stop by again."

"I will, don't you worry about that. It was good to see you, Sousa, have a great rest of your work week, yeah?" 

"Will do. You too."

"Tell Steve he's trouble for me," Bucky called after him and Sousa shook his head with bright eyes. 

"I think he already knows."

Bucky shrugged, waving goodbye and thinking, _yeah, probably does._

 

"I literally couldn't pin him down, he was in my _lab_ playing with the _butterfly_ and he walked back out without a drop of blood to speak for."

"I told you! It's harder than it looks," Peggy insisted, running a finger over the strap of her purse and already thinking of the next plan to get the Barnes Blood Sample. 

It was already Friday and she was running out of ideas. But the were all going out tonight, she should be able to figure something out around that--

Funny enough, she finally got him with the simplest of things. They were standing in front of the Griffin, parting ways after he'd walked her home from the SSR building - apparently he'd been visiting with Daniel or something and they'd ran into each other on the way out. Peggy was leaving early because it was Friday and Chief Duley said they didn't have anymore pertinent coffee orders left and she just bit her tongue and grabbed her things because it meant extra time to get ready for tonight, or else she would've said something. 

"Oh, James, before you leave," Peggy started, reaching in her bag while Bucky paused on the sidewalk, raising an eyebrow at her and waiting for her to finish fishing the brooch out of its pocket. 

"Would you mind giving this back to Angie? You'll probably see her before I do and I borrowed it a little while ago..." she made sure to shove the brooch at him while she was still talking, digging through her purse and she almost missed the sharp inhale. 

Peggy's head snapped up the same time Bucky stuck his thumb in his mouth with another pitiful pained groan and she had a split second to think; snatched the brooch back before he could keep it from her, dropping it inside her kerchief and quickly holding out the other she had in her bag. 

"Sorry, wrong one, this one's Angie's," she explained quickly and Bucky shot her an annoyed look over the finger he was sucking in his mouth and frankly he looked quite silly but Peggy didn't care. 

There was a drop of blood on her kerchief and finally fucking _finally_ \--

"Won't you see her first anyways?" Bucky complained and Peggy tutted, smoothing a curl away from her face. 

"Actually, I've got an errand to run and I figured if the diner's on the way back to your apartment..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll take it to her. But Jesus Christ Peggy, I'd check up on your vision or depth perception or something because that's like the millionth time this week you've injured me and my hands and knees are not thanking you."

"I know, I know, I'm terribly sorry but I really am quite late I should be getting to that errand as soon as possible," Peggy rambled, starting for the edge of the sidewalk and it was a shame since Bucky'd walked her all the way here but she had to get that sample to Howard _now_. 

Bucky was a perfect gentleman regardless of the time she'd made him waste and the newest wound she'd inflicted; stepping to the curb ahead of her and raising his arm to flag down a taxi with the matching piercing whistle. One pulled up almost instantly and Bucky opened the back door, shaking his head at her as she ducked inside and gave him another apologetic smile. 

"Stay outta trouble, okay? And make sure you're on time for the movies tonight, Steve'll throw a fit."

"Yes, yes, I know. Thank you Barnes, have a lovely rest of your afternoon and I'll see you in a few hours, alright?"

He waved her off with an exasperated look on his handsome face he didn't mean and Peggy smiled watching the pretty soldier shake his head in the rearview and start back across the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and his mouth curled around a whistle. 

She sure as hell hoped they were wrong about this. 

 

"I won’t be available tonight, we’re all going to the movies." Peggy wrung her hands together and tried peering over Stark's shoulder for whatever results he might've gotten within ten seconds of her dashing inside the door and practically shoving the napkin and brooch in his chest. 

"Bloodwork takes a while and extracting DNA from this miniscule sample is not gonna be easy. If I have enough I wanna run it twice anyways. Should take a week, maybe two." Stark tapped something on his clipboard and Peggy sighed, because that was a hell of a long time to not know anything for sure. It was still all speculation but still, there was a chance. "But damn Peg, don’t know how you managed, he’s a damned eel."

"He’s slippery, yes. quite."

 

And debonair and confident and crazy and currently worrying the hell out of Steve. 

Mainly because there was nothing left to worry about. Bucky'd freaked for god knows why, he'd dragged himself back out of it, and three hours later he was acting like it never happened at all. That was the worst part; Bucky wasn't even being cautious or different at all. If anything he was louder, making harsher jokes and more lewd grins, piling Steve and the girls into a taxi so they could go see their show. 

Steve really just wanted him to be okay. 

 

Bucky was _fine_. And Steve was looking at him like he was a goddamned live grenade. 

(Although he wasn't jumping on top of and curling around Bucky, what was that about? Oh, wait, right. Steve didn't feel that way, how could Bucky forget.) 

At least he didn't say anything with the girls there. Steve was always his best-behaved around the women and that may be half the reason Bucky took him on doubledates. So Bucky'd have to behave too. So he'd uphold his reputation and flirt with his distraction girl instead of side-eyeing Steve the whole time. 

Although, okay, let's be real Bucky still spent most of those double dates side-eyeing Steve the whole time, but who was counting? 

Except, apparently, this double-date. He was under the impression Angie'd asked Steve on a date then invited Peggy and Bucky along to make him more comfortable only apparently he'd been entirely wrong about that. 

Angie sat down first, looking stunning in her deep blue dress and bouncing curls pinned up with a pearl clip. Bucky moved aside so Steve could walk into the movie seats aisle next, crossing his fingers behind his back to pray that Peggy would let _him_ sit next to Steve instead of her. He didn't usually end up so lucky, but that didn't mean he didn't always hope for it. 

But...but Steve was moving aside too to let Peggy slip past and Bucky furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He wasn't going to stop Miss Carter - who was also dressed to the nines in a lovely green dress - halfway down the aisle, wasn't going to make a scene or anything, he'd wait until they were all seated to say anything. 

Seated that meant Peggy was sitting next to Angie and Steve was sitting next to Peggy and Bucky and Angie were on the outsides? That was not how double dates worked. And Bucky leaned over to bring that very point up, whispering close against Steve's ear. 

"Why aren't we sitting every-other?" Bucky whispered and now Steve was the one who looked confused. 

"Did you want to?" Steve whispered back, glancing over at where Peggy and Angie were situating a bucket of popcorn between them. 

"I-- no, this is fine. I guess we've just never done it like this before." Bucky shrugged, leaning back in his seat, watching Steve from the corner of his eye. He was a lot more stiff than he'd been a second ago and it was only the good best friend thing to do to cheer him up, right?

"Besides," Bucky drawled, not loud enough for the other rows to hear but enough for Steve to look back at him again, even though Bucky was staring at the screen in front of them and trying not to smile. "I think I've got a lot more _room_ \--"

He yawned in the middle of the word, exaggerated and playful as he stretched his arms up for the sky, brought them back down wide as his mouth closed on the yawn in that same _lameass_ move he'd never had to resort to with a real date. 

"--this way," he finished, his arm effectively thrown over Steve's shoulder now. He curled his thumb over hard muscle, getting in one lazy stroke before Steve's eyes went wide and he was shoving Bucky off with an indignant squawk. 

Now _that_ sound made half the theatre look at them but it was fine now, Bucky had his arms back to himself and was laughing his ass off while Steve was huffing and pouting with his arms crossed over his chest, only he couldn't keep up the faux-annoyance for long then he was cracking a smile too, shaking his head with a sigh and Bucky settled back in his seat, smiles on both their faces now and all the tension drained between them. 

Really, Bucky'd love to keep his arm around Steve for the whole show, only Steve would never let him. Not to mention it might raise some questions from the people around them and Bucky did not want another repeat incident of people calling them slurs, the way they had in the diner. Yeah, he hadn't forgotten the look on Steve's face when he heard those assholes comment on what Bucky's mouth looked like and he did not particularly want to relive that experience in any way. 

Speaking of trouble. 

The pre-show beginning cartoons were just starting to roll when Bucky leaned over in his seat again, keeping his voice neutral and his eyes forward as he carefully prodded Steve. 

"So, you have any trouble at the office lately? Anybody giving you a hard time?" 

Just the other day Steve'd come storming home pissed about some jackass in the office, it'd be pointless to lie about it now. 

Only. Only Steve did. He lied right to Bucky's face. 

"Nope. Everything's been goin' great. No complaints from me." 

Bucky sat up straight in his chair and turned his whole torso to Steve, looking at him incredulously in the dim theatre lights of just a flickering screen. 

"No troubles at all. Nothing." 

"Nothing," Steve confirmed in another lie and Bucky had to focus not to let his jaw drop to the floor. "Everyone's been great." 

(If great meant an ongoing feud that'd gotten so bad both of them refused to share an elevator anymore, biting comments from all parties now and Steve was pretty sure half the office had a running bet going of who would snap first and just sock the other in the nose. 

Which only made both of them harsher and meaner because Steve sure as hell wasn't gonna break first, but he'd have a fan-fucking-tactic excuse to punch Thompson if he laid one out first. 

"You raised in a goddamn shed, Rogers? Mommy brush your hair for you? Clean yourself the fuck up if you wanna go into that interrogation room, I won't have some backalley-scrap-looking agent mess up all the fine work I've done." 

People could insult a lot of things, but Sarah wasn't one of them. And as a matter of fact Steve had grown up a backalley scrap instead of whatever privileged fucking life Jack had and if he weren't more stubborn than he was angry, he'd've punched Thompson for that one. 

"Daniel, I can't fucking stand him. He thinks he's so goddamned superior and excuse me, how many lives did he save in the war? How many people has he helped since then? He's a goddamned lowlife riding on the coat-tails of everyone else's success--"

"What success?" Thompson suddenly sneered from behind him and Steve whipped around. "Your success in tights with a shiny plastic shield? At least when I had my name in the papers it was for a medal instead of a goddamned dance tour!" 

It was a problem. 

An increasingly-getting-worse problem.) 

Bucky drummed his fingers on the armrest and pursed his lips in annoyance. 

Why would Steve lie to him? 

Unless it was an even bigger problem than Daniel had let on? 

"Bucky, Steve," Peggy hissed and they both snapped out of their respective thoughts, a bright and a reluctant smile leaning forward in their seats to see both girls. 

"You two are missing it! Look!"

Angie gestured wildly at the screen and they both turned in tandem again, just in time to catch the announcer's words,

"And before our show today, we have a presentation preview of never before seen footage of America's National Hero and his loyal team: Captain America and the Howling Commandos!" 

Steve groaned, dropping his face in his hands with embarrassment. Bucky childishly elbowed his ribs and Steve groaned more, twisting his body sideways out of elbow reach and Bucky turned to poking instead. 

Right up until the gunfire jogging out of tanks and maps turned into a voiceover about bonds between soldiers and suddenly Bucky's face was plastered on the screen too. 

With Steve's. 

He froze, finger still in Steve's side, making Rogers lift his head to the screen too. Just in time to see a black-and-white version of Bucky - bigger than life - glance over at a black-and-white Steve and said something lost in filming. 

Then they were laughing, Bucky was shaking his head, Steve's eyes squinted in amusement and, and. 

Affection? He was looking at the Bucky affectionately? His head was still down in the video and he hadn't seen the look on Steve's face while they were being filmed but now, watching them interact on a big screen in front of all these other people? 

Bucky's cheeks and the tips of his ears were on fire and he was really goddamned grateful for how dark the theatre was so Steve couldn't see his blush. He hadn't seen Steve blush since the serum but he'd bet if he was (not that he really had a reason too like Bucky did) it'd still go all the way down his chest, that full body blush that used to make him so squeamish and even more self conscious. 

He retracted his finger from Steve's side, rolling his lips in and forcing himself not to look at Steve only Angie and Peggy choose that moment to lean over towards them and say in terrible, atrocious tandom,

"Awwwwee!"

Steve muttered for them to shut up and Bucky jumped up, already backing out of the aisle as he said way too loudly,

"Anybody want popcorn? Great, I'll go get--"

"I'll come," Steve interjected quickly, hopping up to follow him and they both barreled out of the theatre so fast Angie and Peggy's aww was probably still echoing. 

"That was surprisingly easy," Peggy offered and Angie tipped her head back in a laugh, clapping her hands joyously. 

"It was. Now that the boys are gone..." Angie trailed off with a quirk of her eyebrow and it was Peggy's turn to open her mouth in mocking scandal, draping a dramatic hand over her forehead. 

"Oh my, my face is on a screen I'm so humiliated, what do I do--"

"Uhm. Actually..." Angie reached over and prodded Peggy's shoulder, gesturing up at the movie reel again. "That girl looks a lot like you." 

Peggy's eyes snapped up to the screen, hand dropping as she took in the black and white flash of a woman's face in a compass, then another flash to Steve's and Peggy looked white as a ghost. 

"Hey, Carter, she looked too young to be you anyways," Angie quickly saved, nudging Peggy's arm and shooting her a little smile. 

Brown eyes glanced over at her worriedly and Angie shook her head, a smile still on her face as she reached over and adjusted one of Peggy's crimped waves back in place. 

"You alright, English? You've been a little jumpy lately. Breakin' things and such. It's just not like you." 

"I'm...I'm fine, Angie." Peggy's lipsticked lips curled up a bit at the edges, confusion deep in her eyes and a strange gratitude in the way she glanced away and back again, under long lashes as she added softly, "Thank you." 

"Course," Angie waved her hand in dismissal, glancing back to the screen and forcing her mouth shut before she said something stupid, like the words hanging on the tip of her tongue. _What, you've never had somebody notice when you're all up'n'outta sorts before?_

Because, maybe, with the look on Peggy's face, people didn't notice things like that as much as they should. 

Shinola, Angie noticed every little thing about Peggy. She has no idea how anyone else didn't. 

Just because that thought was making her a little sad, Angie scooted over a touch in her seat, tapping the back of Peggy's hand and gesturing up at the black and white previews. 

"You know how long it's been since I went to the movies?" 

"Oh dear, I hope not too long."

"Since before the war," Angie grimaced and Peggy turned all the way in her seat, mouth open in shock. 

"You didn't see all the footage they were constantly showing about the boys overseas?"

"Couldn't." Angie shrugged, squeezing Peggy's wrist for a moment before straightening back up proper in her seat. "All the smiles on those soldiers who had to turn around and gun somebody down? Couldn't stomach it." 

"Neither could Bucky," Peggy said quietly and Angie gave her a confused look. 

"We just saw him laughing up on that screen--"

"He was with Steve. During the war he...he didn't smile much when he wasn't with Steve. Hell, I'm pretty sure if he wasn't stubborn enough to be good at his job he wouldn't smile in the diner either."

"Wow. That's just about the saddest thing I've heard," Angie whispered and Peggy reached over to squeeze her wrist back. 

"It was hard for all of us. But that's why we've got people like you. Nothing heals wounds like a caring smile." 

Peggy held her gaze for a moment and Angie's heart was pounding out of her chest from how close they were. 

But even more importantly, her head was running a series of memories and words for comparison - because she'd been suspecting, for a while, and it could've been a slip or just metaphorical, but Peggy'd just said "we." She'd been talking about soldiers and had just said "we." 

That face in the compass might not've been some other girl after all, huh? 

 

"Jeez. Not the first time we’ve had to run outta the theatre and left two girls behind,” Bucky started and Steve snorted, shoving one hand in his pocket and fixing his pomade with the other, eyes on the checkered tile at their feet.

“That’s one way to put it,” he muttered and Bucky pretended not to hear because he didn’t care what Steve said, there’d never been anything wrong with _him_ , just the girls Bucky picked for doubledates. So he continued right over the top of Steve’s bad memories, refraining from socking him on the shoulder for all the maudlin.

“--but it’s the first time it’s been because our faces were on the screen.”

“I don’t think anybody in the theatre minds your face being on the screen,” Steve sighed and Bucky furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, leaning back against the wall and shoving both hands in his pockets too. 

“You’re the one who’s the national hero,” Bucky pointed out and Steve glanced up at him, chewing on his lip as he settled on the wall next to Bucky, neither of them looking at each other as a couple passed by with a box of licorice. 

“Maybe they used my face for the USO tour but every one of the Howling Commandos did their part--”

“Steve, you don’t gotta preach the patriotism to me. I know, kid. I was there.” 

Steve scuffed his boot on the tiled floor and Bucky made a mental note that Steve still sucked ass at tying bows on shoelaces.

“I’m real glad you were,” Steve said quietly and Bucky glanced up for a millisecond, catching the forlorn blue eyes staring down at his shoes and he was so beautif--

Back to the point. Steve was glad Bucky’d fought the war with him, which was nice and all, except Bucky was still a little peeved Steve came over to fight at all, so. 

But regardless of how many fights Steve got into that he shouldn’t, Bucky’d always be there to drag him out by the ear and yeah, okay, he could admit that much. 

“Course I was,” Bucky cajooled, tipping his bodyweight sideways to slide on the wall and knock his shoulder into Steve’s. “Wouldn’t leave you alone out there on those European fronts.”

“Or in the movies, either.” Steve glanced over his shoulder at the hallway leading down to the theatre doors, like these places _still_ made him uncomfortable. (Actually, Bucky used to make Steve come to the movies with just the two of them, so it wouldn’t be _all_ bad memories. They were actually supposed to see one the night before he shipped out - only he found Steve in a pile of trashcans in the backalley instead and that wasn’t all that surprising. Truthfully, he’d checked there first.) 

“Thanks for that, too.” Blue eyes blinked back down at his shoes and Bucky rolled his eyes. Sometimes Steve was nothing but confidence and charm and stunning power and other times he was fiesty and crazy and curled fists but put him on a date with some girls, blast his face on the big screen in front of ladies he enjoyed, and he was a blushing mess all over again. 

“Rogers, I’ll have you know, all this time out of alleys is making you soft.”

“I’m not _soft_ you dick, you’re soft.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

He didn’t expect the punch to his stomach. It was actually down there at the very bottom on the list of things to expect, right along with Steve pushing him up against the wall and kissing him. 

But they couldn't all get what they want, so. 

So Bucky got his stomach playfully socked with very strong knuckles and did it hurt? Yeah. Did his stomach cave because he wasn’t clenching his abs? A little, yeah. Did he shove Steve back for it? Hell yeah. 

The glancing and blushing went to giggling and shoving then an usher was hushing them and Bucky was elbowing Steve again and Steve gave him that smile that made Bucky melt a little at the knees and that was like half the reason they’d left the theatre in the first place and now they were heading back with the same smiles on their faces. 

Steve knocked their shoulders together and Bucky flicked the back of Steve’s hand then Steve was grabbing his fingers to stop him from flicking again and Bucky was only half-heartedly wiggling his hand to get free because he really didn’t wanna be free especially when they were this close and Steve’s smile was so cute and their hands were tangled up and Bucky’s heart was pounding out of his chest and Steve’s fingers were still squeezing his when Steve opened the theatre doors to gesture Bucky back inside with a lame little bow. 

The back row shhh’ed annoyedly the moment the door closed behind them and Bucky clapped his free hand over his mouth because he didn’t even realize they were still giggling like idiots. 

And then they were halfway down the aisle on the way back to their seats - were Angie and Peggy sitting way closer to each other than usual? - when another realization hit that made Bucky stop in his tracks, yanking Steve to a stop too. 

“Oh shit. We forgot the popcorn.” 

They didn’t get escorted out for laughing so hard they interrupted the movie, but it was close. 

 

The rest of the evening was far less eventful, although there was still quite a lot of elbowing and whispering from all four parties. 

Smiles were wide and spirits were high by the time the credits rolled, then they all decided to walk home since the evening weather was so surprisingly nice. 

Peggy - unsurprisingly - knew a shortcut back and that's where they were now, the four of them walking in loose formation down dark, abandoned cobblestone streets.

There was no one to be seen for a block and a half, so they were strolling down the middle of the road, two pairs of women's heels and two pairs of men's clicking on the old-fashioned stones underfoot, golden streetlights dotting the way every twenty feet, the occasional puddle glittering like the downtown district lights on the harbor. 

Bucky slung an arm over Steve's shoulders, yanking him down just enough to make Steve stumble and Bucky squeeze affectionately tighter. 

“That was a _fantastic_ double date," he declared and Steve tucked his shoulder properly behind Bucky's to allow the slight height difference. He had to admit, it was comforting he could still throw an arm around Stevie's shoulders after a date, there were quite a few times in the war he'd thought they'd never have this again. 

"Except it wasn’t a doubledate--" Peggy started and Bucky lifted the finger on Steve's shoulder, turning to her with a loudly exaggerated,

"Shhh. Let me have this moment." Bucky closed his eyes, tipping back his head to suck in city air with a smile playing the corners of his mouth. "I'm using this to make up for all of my failed doubledates of our younger years."

"Those were hardly your fault--" Steve started and Bucky snapped back to look at him, flicking the side of his neck with the hand conveniently close anyways. 

"Oh they definitely were," Bucky interrupted, turning to Peg and Ang with a disgusted crinkle of his nose. "Picked all the wrong girls. Rude bunch of dames, really."

"If this is a double date," Angie piped up, playfully swinging her skirt back and forth with graceful hands, "-then who was who’s date?"

Everyone kinda stopped in the middle of the road, expressions etched in various levels of confusion, pursed lips as they all stared forward at the bustling city lights in the distance and realized the answer to that question was not as simple as it should've been. 

Because, see, the thing was, Peggy and Angie sat together all night and Steve and Bucky sat together but wasn't like anybody could say that out loud. 

A distant horn blared and they all turned to each other, lined up and exchanging looks and Bucky could literally _feel_ the amount of unspoken in the air and he was just gonna go out on a limb here and say if they all felt the way he did, this would be a super friend-of-Dorothy moment. Except they didn't, only Bucky did, which meant he was of course the first one to open his mouth again. 

With a very dramatic sigh; waving a hand to begin walking again, patting Steve's shoulder to the sound of clicking heels and shaking his head in pitiful sorrow. 

"You fine ladies will just have to fight over who gets to say they were on my arm tonight. It's an honor _I_ usually chose the dame for, but I suppose tonight we'll make an exception. Whoever presents the better argument--”

Peggy and Angie interrupted his dramatic speech in perfect unison. 

“I call Steve.”

Bucky stopped to a dead halt in the middle of the street, mouth popping open in _major_ offense and Steve broke off from under his arm, leaning back and cackling up at the silver-lined night sky. 

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and glared harder and Steve laughed harder and Peggy rolled her eyes with that secretive smile and Angie knocked her puffy shoulder against the puffs on Peggy's dress, smile brighter than ever in the golden streetlights. 

"Oh, how the tides have turned,” Steve finally managed, arm over his stomach as the laughter faded and Bucky was done being cross - had never been cross, that was actually quite wonderfully executed on the ladies' part and he'd been entirely joking about them fighting over the title of Bucky's date. They knew that, of course, but Bucky was gonna make a fuss anyways. 

Which was ending in sullen moue, bottom lip stuck out and iceblue eyes wide with faux-hurt, puppy dog eyes aimed sad at the girls for a moment before he turned properly to his best friend again. 

"But I want Steve," Bucky pouted, looping his arm through Stevie's as they all began walking again, the two girls linking arms to lead the way. 

Steve patted his hand condolingly and no one was protesting Bucky's claim so it looked like he was the one who landed the best date of the night this time. 

Well. Not really. Steve thought he was just up to his antics and the girls were paying more attention talking amongst each other than whatever he and Steve were up to. 

Except then the shortcut was opening up, coming into the brighter lights of more civilized roads and it was only half a block left until the real world hit them in the face. 

Quite literally, if they were still walking like this. 

Bucky unhooked his arm from Steve's and Peggy unhooked hers from Angie's, perfect silence as they all paused in the road for a moment, just long enough to keep their eyes down and grim smiles no one meant on their faces, silence as they linked back up in new pairs. Steve and Peggy up front, Angie's small arm looping through Bucky's and he placed his palm on top of her small one, almost - but not quite - smiling as she squeezed his hand. 

No matter what under-the-surface jokes they made amongst each other, if even they couldn't say it out loud (let alone mean it) no one was stupid enough to take a risk like that in public. They all knew what had to happen, and it was this. 

Steve and Peggy strolling ahead, nine miles of beautiful long legs and shiny hair and dashing smiles while Bucky and Angie fell a step behind, hopping up onto the sidewalk to pre-empt any cars they may encounter at the corner. 

It was a whole different perspective, watching Steve and Peggy walk together like this. The observer behind, front row seat to hushed witty banter and smiling eyes and good god, two of the most dangerous people on the planet looked like angels, strolling handsomely down the street together. 

"They sure look good together, huh?" Bucky offered, light enough that it could be mistaken for something besides the jealousy it was. 

Angie pursed her lips, a curl falling free as she nodded, eyes drooping with as much sorrow as her tone. "Sure do." 

A saddened sigh followed and Bucky squinted at the distant lights, debating whether or not he'd just heard that wrong. 

He shot a side-glance at the usually unbreakably bubbly girl on his arm and--

And she had this look on her face. 

She had this _look_ on her face, staring off distantly after Steve and Peggy and that look, Bucky knew that look. 

Oh, did Bucky know that look. 

He had a matching one on his face right now. 

See, for _him_ to be gazing after Steve with that tone of longing--

It was to be expected. It was just part of their relationship that nobody questioned because that was how they were. How Bucky was. And everyone knew it. 

(They didn't know the truth, not really, but everyone knew Bucky cared too much for that nurse's punk kid.) 

Actually, Bucky was pretty sure there were at least three Howling Commandos conspiracy theories about that look. 

Or, more accurately, what the look meant. 

The first of which he’d actually walked in on, to his mortification. 

It was some time in '44, deep woods of god knows what country and the Commandos were bunking up for the night, fire blazing and a few logs thrown hastily in a circle. 

He and Steve had just waved off with a word or two about collecting firewood, which was true because they did need more if they were gonna keep the fire going all night. Considered it was fucking freezing, it was a good idea. 

But Bucky forgot his coat and ran back to the tents to grab it, letting Steve go look for dry wood without him. Only just as he was about to step around the edge of the tent and into sight, he caught the tail end of his name - and Steve's - and froze. 

Bucky paused, wrapping his coat tighter around himself and keeping in the shadows because sue him, the team was talking about them and he was curious what they had to say. Anyone would be. 

Besides. It couldn't be that bad, right? 

"So how long you think til they’re screwing?"

Falsworth choked on his beans and it was a damn good thing he did, because otherwise the Commandos would've heard Bucky's similar sound of shocked mortification. 

"What?" Dugan smacked his lips together and the fire was crackling so loudly, if one of them dropped into a whisper Bucky'd miss their words and this was suddenly a conversation he was very invested in. "It’s Rogers and Barnes, you see the way they look at each other."

His mouth popped open in offense - even though they couldn't see him; didn't know he was here or they definitely would not be talking about this. Well, Falsworth sounded pretty shocked by it too, at least. 

But Gabe didn't, chewing a bite of his dinner before piping up curiously, 

"But you don’t think they’re screwing yet?" 

It was so...conspiratorial. Like this was just some regular, normal conversation to have over baked beans while he and Steve gathered firewood. Well, tonight, just Steve. Bucky had much more important things to do, like figure out why the hell Dugan thought he was going to have sex with Steve and why the hell Jones seemed more surprised by the idea that they weren't already having sex with each other. 

"Nah," Dugan dismissed and Bucky could just see the contemplative mustache twitch and cock of the familiar bowler hat. "If they were having sex regularly, they’d both be chill all the time. You know Rogers. He’s got a stick up his ass and unfortunately it ain’t Barnes’s."

Bucky did choke on his own spit that time. 

Everyone else had simply nodded along with various agreement and that meant when Bucky practically squawked from the shadows, everybody heard him. 

All heads shot up and he really wasn't that well hidden in the shadows which meant everyone could see the look on his face, caught eavesdropping but that definitely wasn't why his face was bright red. 

Dead silence shifted like a switch, instantaneous roaring laughter and Bucky absolutely hated every single person he'd ever met on this planet and trudged to the fire anyways, plopping down moodily on a log and glaring at everyone without meeting their eyes because he was still blushing like a goddamned idiot. 

At least he had the console of most the Commandos running out of breath and gasping from laughing so hard and Falsworth was crying and the entire team was a puddled mess on the ground, getting more dirt all over their clothes and they were still like that when Steve got back. 

The Commandos took one look at him and one look at Bucky and a whole new round of peals lit up and Dernier was rolling on the ground and Steve dropped his armful of firewood to the ground, looking very confused as he asked, "What?"

And because they literally couldn't make this any worse, Bucky figured fuck it and shrugged, glancing up at Steve dryly. 

"You got more sticks to add to the conversation, thank you." 

The roars turned into silent choking laughter and even Bucky was laughing that time. 

Steve looked at him all confused and hurt and he finally managed to reign it in enough to clap Steve on the shoulder and tell him that the Commandos were just appreciative of all they did for each other and no one behind them could stop laughing. 

But see, that was Bucky. Bucky looked at Steve like that and the Commandos made a lot of jokes and everybody went their merry ways, and if at least two of the Commandos realized just how close to home the jokes hit, they didn’t say anything. And they never mentioned any of them to Steve, so no harm done. 

It was all tallied up to gallows humor - in a twisted sort of sense - and so long as Steve stayed oblivious (which was probably for as long as he stayed stubborn), the jokes were safe and Bucky didn't have a thing to worry about and he could give Steve _that look_ near anytime he wanted. 

He was Bucky Barnes. 

Angie Martinelli was not. 

And she had that look on her face, the signature look. 

If Angie was looking at the pair like that? It was impossible she _wasn't_ head over heels. 

It just didn't add up. He was so sure Ang didn't like Steve, how could he have judged that so wro--

Oh. Oh _oh._

No. 

No...maybe. There was a chance. A very small very irrational but still little bitty chance and there was no way he could just let that _go._

But what were the odds? Was it...was he just projecting his feelings onto other people or...or was Angie Martinelli in love with her best friend? 

 

~*~

 

"Hey Ang?" 

"Yes, Brooklyn?" She swiped her cloth over a table and Bucky hesitated, glancing towards the empty door. 

"Nothing. Nothing." 

 

"Rogers!"

"Fuck."

"Steve!"

"Sorry, Peg, it's just that Thompson's drivin' me _insane_."

"Mm. Well. I think he wants to talk to you." 

"Ugh. Great. What did I set on fire this time?" 

 

"So...Angie..."

"Yes?"

"The other day you mentioned..."

"Yes?"

"...nothing. Nothing, sorry."

"You alright Barnes?"

"Great, thanks." 

 

"How'd it go?" 

By the way Steve slammed everything on his table, not so well. 

"What'd he chew you out for this time?"

"Everything, there's always something." Steve collapsed in his chair with a heavy sigh. 

 

Bucky was doing the same fifteen minutes away, in a free booth at the diner, cheek smushed in a hand propped by an elbow on the table and he just couldn't figure out how he was supposed to say something. 

 

Except Steve's problem was that he had way too much to say. If it was up to him he'd let his fists do the talking. Everything was just so infuriating, it was like he couldn't make a single step without getting barked at or made fun of and it was getting so _tiring_. 

Really, he never should've started fighting back because the moment he started throwing insults and glares unprovoked, everything got about a hundred times worse. 

Not to mention it was all extremely distracting from work, which he was supposed to be dedicated to right now. Only even then, he spent half his day today worrying over Bucky's panic attack yesterday. Over Bucky in general, really. 

 

"Okay...this time." Bucky shoved himself up, wiping his hands on his apron and beelining straight for the kitchen "Angie?"

"Bucky Barnes if you come in here with that same gosh darned thought in your head and back out sayin' nothin' again, I promise on my great grandmother's grave, I will whack you with a wooden spoon."

He faltered, hesitating and wringing his hands together. Honestly, he could ruin their friendship over this and that was about the very very last thing he wanted to do. If his curiosity got the better of him this time...

 

...the problem was that Steve's stubbornness was getting the better of him and it was causing so many unnecessary problems and it was just breaking Peggy's heart, seeing how stiff and tense and defensive Steve spent every minute at work these days. 

"Steve, maybe you could try just...talking to him about it."

"What?" The blonde head snapped up and Peggy bit back a sigh, shifting in her chair and leaning forward to hold his attention, raising both eyebrows as she offered again, 

"Both of your lives would be so much better if you could...make friends with him. It's not an entirely irrational--"

"Yes, Peggy, it is. We have nothing in common, he thinks he's _so superior_ and he just can't stand the competition. But if I back down now, if I run once? They'll never let me stop running."

"I'm not talking about backing down, I'm talking about moving _for_ ward. Underneath that quite atrocious exterior, he's just another soldier riddled with guilt and deaths in his conscious."

"Oh, right, I'm sure. Jack's the posterboy for shellshock."

"I've seen him freeze before. Everyone freezes. But he's got quite a history, a terribly depressing one at that. You know the story of how he got his Navy Cross?"

"Yeah," Steve dismissed dryly and Peggy pursed her lips, debating whether it was hers to share or not but if it made a _difference_ \--

Frankly, they were all desperate at this point. 

"He only told the Commandos half the story. That team who came into his camp, that he gunned down entirely before anyone woke up? They were carrying a white flag with them."

Steve spun slowly around in his chair to face her and Peggy raised an eyebrow at him. 

"He didn't realize until after they were all dead. They were coming to surrender and he took all of those lives and he has to live with the _guilt_ of getting a Navy Cross for it. He's not a terrible person, he's had terrible things happen and he's responded to them terribly. And he's hiding behind this veneer...But Steve, you could help that. You two could team up with instead of against each other and--"

"Peggy, Peggy. Look, that's very touching and all, but. One sob story isn't going to change all the crap he's put me - and everyone else at this office, including you until recently - through. I just...can't." 

Speak of the devil. 

"Rogers!"

 

He felt vaguely bad about cornering Angie in the kitchen like this but curiosity killed the cat and he had to go through with this. Hopefully, satisfaction would bring him back. 

It just made sense, was all. The change in her demeanor, the bubbly steps and the fond gazing and the cheery joy and the orders she had memorized and the whole way she acted about it all, not to mention she'd admitted she had a crush and there were quite a few random side-comments here and there that'd made Bucky stop and think and he just had to say something. 

"You don’t have to tell me anything, but. But I swear, I won’t judge, I just. I figured. I mean--"

"Brooklyn. Out with it."

Angie crossed her thin arms over her chest, raising an unimpressed eyebrow and tapping the toe of her heels against tile, waiting for him to blurt it out and Bucky was already cringing as he finally opened his mouth and sputtered,

"Do you like Peggy?" The words were more wince than question and he wasn't sure what reaction he'd been expecting, but Angie's face just _shut down._ All the exasperation and amusement switch flipped into dull, disagreeable nothingness.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about, James." Cornered or not Angie started forward, stalking across the kitchen to move around him and she'd never called him James before - thank you Peggy, God knows _he_ didn't tell Ang that was his first name - so odds are he was in deep shit and he'd really like to fix that before one of his best friendships got thrown out the window. 

"Wait, wait. Ang." He waved his hands in a placating gesture, excusing everything he'd just fumbled over and making Angie pause tentatively. "I’d never mean to offend you, but I swear, I didn’t mean it negatively. I mean I’d totally support you, I know it’s not all conventional or anything but she’s fine as hell." And funny and caring and all those other things he didn't like to think about all that much because yeah, okay, there was a part of him that was still a little jealous about the thing she had with Steve but if he saw it he sure as hell knew Angie had to too. "I get it, believe me, I understand." 

"You understand what it’d be like to feel something for someone that’s considered a sin," Angie dead panned, unimpressed but more sorrowful than pissed now, the same way she talked about all those acting gigs she'd gotten stomped into the dust over. "To be _queer_?"

Bucky cringed again at that word. He hated that word. Just heard it too much back home in Brooklyn, sometimes aimed at little Stevie just because he was small and pretty and it hurt so bad to see the hurt in his eyes over the insult, to patch up those eyes and have it all feel like a lie because Stevie was hurt because people thought he might like fellas, only his best friend who was defending him actually _did._

He hesitated at Angie's despairing question, pretty head of curls hung and sadness tugging her mouth and he could come clean right now, he could take her hand and tell the truth. Say hell yeah, he knew what that was like and it was shitty as fuck. But the worst part was that as wrong as you felt about it, it'd never compare to the fact that everyone else was even more sure you were disgusting and twisted. 

But he froze. Opened his mouth and that didn't come out, carefully picked vague words of comfort did instead. 

"I know it can’t be easy, but I also don’t think it’s...wrong. It’s different, but just because people don’t understand it - or don’t want to understand it, means it’s wrong. I mean. I've seen men die, I've shot people and been in a war, that's where the evil is, not in two dames hittin' it off. So you like Carter. It’s not like they’ll kick you out of the army or anything." 

The end got a little bitter and probably gave a little much away but the whole thing was so fucked up and honestly, if Angie could look him in the eye and say she did like Peggy, maybe it'd all feel a little _less_ fucked up. Because there'd be more people to spread the fucked-up to, y'know? 

She gave him a funny look for the bitter and Bucky held his breath, watching her shift through all the possibilities and meanings and this could all take a dive sideways right now and backfire in his face or--

Or Angie could finally deflate, sighing at him and throwing up a pretty hand. 

"So maybe I do." It sounded final, and almost confident, and Bucky could totally crush her in a hug right now. His face must've said so because Angie rolled her eyes, taking a step backwards before turning, heading to the sink to start cleaning dishes, have something to do with her hands. "It's not like I'm in love with her or anything. Maybe it's. Just a little crush."

She shrugged and Bucky let out the breath he'd been holding, sidling up to the other side of the sink to pick up a towel and hold out a hand for a clean dish. 

"Okay." He smiled and Angie shook her head, fondness edging back into her features as she smiled a little to herself too. "Okay, that’s okay. Do you know how she feels…?"

"Not queer, that’s for sure." Angie scrubbed hard over a ketchup stain and Bucky bit his lip in sympathy. Well, empathy, he knew how that part went too. 

"Well, she always could…" Bucky argued half-heartedly and Angie snorted, shooting him that amused glance to cover up whatever pain she was feeling underneath the pretty facade. 

"My luck, she’d hate me for it."

"Oh I doubt that. But hey, I understand. My lips are sealed. But if you ever wanna talk about it? You know I’m here."

Angie handed him another plate, tone back in that same one when she sighed about her numerous miserable auditions. 

"You’re a good person sometimes, Brooklyn. An alarmingly good person." 

"Been friends with Steve too long."

"If that's possible." 

"Yeah," Bucky agreed distantly, thinking what he'd give to have the kind of fearlessness and freedom Angie Martinelli did. Just friends, their whole lives. Not that that wasn't the best thing in the world, but if there was ever a chance of more, wouldn't that be even better? "...maybe."

 

The alley door on the side of the SSR building slammed shut and Steve picked up his pace into a light jog, practically crashing through it and into the dusk-dimmed alley. 

It was too far back to see anything on the busy street ahead, dark brick walls towering on both sides and the occasional trash can dotting the rough ground but Steve didn't notice a single bit of it, he'd spent enough time in alleys to know they were all the same. 

He was much more focused on the man a dozen steps ahead of him. 

"What the hell's your _problem_?" Steve shouted after him and Jack froze in his tracks, spinning around slowly and looking at Steve like he honestly couldn't believe he'd followed him out here. 

Right, like Steve was gonna leave the comment about him screwing his way to fame untouched. 

"My problem? _My_ problem?" Thompson looked at him incredulously, taking a step back in Steve's direction and narrowing piercing light blue eyes. "You're the one who won't goddamned catch a hint."

"What hint? That you're a complete ass and an utter _bully_? No, I got that loud and clear." Steve crossed his arms over his chest, feeling a little exposed in just his white button down and black suspenders, regretting the decision to leave his jacket hanging inside. 

"The hint that no one at this office," Jack pointed accusingly at the building beside them, mouth twisting in a dead-serious sneer. "-wants you here." 

"How many times have we been over this? I'm probably more qualified than _you_ \--"

"You have no respect for any position above you--"

"No, actually, that's just you I don't respect."

They were standing five feet away now, hackles raised and Steve just couldn't stand that stupid perfect blonde hair and the stupid fucking commanding voice and the stupid fucking smirk he always got, clapping Steve on the shoulder like he was ten or small and he couldn't fucking stand _bullies_.

"You don't know the first thing about me," Thompson narrowed blue eyes and Steve raised his eyebrows, leaning back a touch with his mouth open. 

" _Really?_ I don't know anything about you? Right, right, because I don't have to put up with your shit every goddamned day." 

"You don't put up with anything, you whine about every goddamned thing that gets thrown your way," Thompson stabbed a finger in his chest, looking Steve up and down mockingly and Steve glowered, fists curling and uncurling at his sides. They were standing close enough he could smell Thompson's aftershave and this asshole got him shot, this asshole tried to ruin his life on a daily basis and Steve honestly wasn't sure he could take it anymore. 

Teetering on the edge of a cliff they'd been building higher since that first quip in the elevators about Steve being some pretty face to fill a space and Steve just wanted to fucking _punch_ that stupid, cocky, sneer, charming smile off Thompson's face. 

Instead he leaned another inch forward, dangerously close now as he narrowed his gaze, lips pursing in the same scorn Thompson always threw at him and hurtled right past the line he never should've thought of crossing. 

"At least I _earned_ all my metals, at least I don’t roll in fake fame built off a throne of _lies_."

Jack's mouth popped open in shock, eyes flashing with betrayal and he must've told that to Peggy in confidence and wasn't that even more of a twist to the knife: Steve knew Thompson was a fraud who rode on medals he didn't earn and a woman Jack'd trusted with a secret spilled it to his arch enemy and the scandalized look on Thompson's face _almost_ made guilt churn in Steve's stomach. 

The poisonous, hateful mouth pursed down and his cheeks hollowed even more than usual, sharp cheekbones practically screaming for Steve to bruise one and wouldn't that be so goddamned satisfying, to see the look on Thompson's face as Steve socked him and he got everything he fucking deserved. 

"Fame built on _lies_?" Jack hissed, teeth grit and jaw clicking about the Navy Cross and then another pointed, aggressive finger was stabbing the center of his chest, right where Steve's Captain America star used to sit. "Really? _Me_? We've all the heard about how you became so goddamned great and before you were some fucking science experiment you were _nothing_."

Jack's jaw was clenched and Steve's fists were clenched and Jack just kept right on biting words into Steve's face. 

"The most pitiful loser they could fucking find, the only one stupid and _desperate_ enough to let them strap him into a machine that could kill him - and if you're a nobody now? I can't imagine how useless, irrelevant, fucking _waste of space_ you must've been to run like a goddamned arms race on some smidgen of hope you wouldn't get squashed under the next ant's foot and might actually make a fucking _friend_ for the first time in your pitiful, sick, lonely life--"

Snap. 

It all happened so fast Steve had no idea what was happening until he realized Thompson wasn't rambling his stupid fucking mouth anymore. 

No, Thompson's stupid fucking mouth was crashed into Steve's. 

One moment Jack was spitting those biting words in Steve's face and the next Steve was crowding him against the closest brick wall, body jolting as he smacked the dirty surface hard, pinned by Steve's chest and his hands on Thompson's jaw, thumbs digging bruises into bone. Biting words silenced for clashing teeth, spitting insults for the smear of their mouths together and Steve's entire body was on fire, muscles tensed and adrenaline pumping in fight mode and honestly,

That's a little of what it felt like, Thompson's sharp teeth grazing his bottom lip as Steve tipped his head sideways and kissed harder, thudding Thompson's skull back against the wall too and it was so forceful, so much condensed emotion Steve could taste the anger on Jack's lips, the hateful slip of their mouths overlapping and sliding apart and 

Oh my fucking _god_. 

He was kissing Jack Thompson. 

Steve shoved off as fast and hard as he'd snapped, stumbling a foot backwards and Jack sagged a touch against the wall, gasping in oxygen through swollen, wet lips and Steve's heart was going to pound out of his fucking chest, serum or not. 

He was frozen, breathing too heavy as he looked down at his hands, the same way he'd stared down at them two years ago on the day they'd pumped the serum into his veins and he'd ran and jumped and swam and punched and finally stood, chest heaving as he lifted his palms and couldn't believe they belonged to him. 

When he finally lifted his head, his eyes were wide and his mouth was still open and his lips felt too puffy too and Steve honestly could not believe that just fucking happened. 

Jack was looking at him, trying to catch his breath himself, turning his head to spit on the alley ground, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth like he could erase the past thirty seconds that way. Steve still couldn't so much as close his mouth, let alone move. 

Thompson, though. Thompson may be propped against the brick wall like he didn't trust his knees but his shiny mouth still had full function of its malicious bite, distance between them or not. 

"Is that how you solve problems at home, Rogers?" Jack set his jaw, taking a shaky step forward and lifting his head with a challenge in his eyes, accusation in his words. "Put your mouth on the pretty little Sergeant to make him do his Captain’s bidding?” 

That time, Steve punched him. 

And the experience was less alike than he'd expected, primarily because he was fully aware of every movement it took, the slowmotion of the drawback and the slight widening of Jack's bright eyes.

Then his fist was colliding with Thompson's jaw and the sharp thud smarted up his wrist and Steve didn't care, at all. Jack could talk shit about him and drag his past and his weak body and his mom and his upbringing, but he couldn't fucking _touch_ Bucky. 

Jack's mouth popped open in surprise - or maybe pain - and Steve cursed under his breath, shaking out his hand and not paying enough attention to Thompson's expression. 

The hand popping his own jaw back in place, fingertips dabbing the blood on the corner of his mouth, eyes recognizing, narrowing. Hands curling into fists in return. 

Then Thompson was straightening up and Steve was too hung up on what he'd said about Bucky to see Thompson's arm reel back, then there was a fist headed straight for his nose and Steve was fucked. 

 

A key in their apartment door made Bucky lift his head a fraction off the couch, too wiped to put in any more effort than that. 

"Hey," he was already drawling before Steve even opened the door properly, a single obituary glance over before he got to drop his head to the couch again and stare at the ceiling. 

Except the single glance suddenly had him freezing. 

Steve slunk inside silently, closing the door carefully behind him and turning around to lock it but it was too late, Bucky'd already seen his face. 

And promptly vaulted off the couch. 

His woes and tiredness shot out of him like a bullet and he'd crossed the living room to the foyer in a record time of roughly four seconds. 

"Shit, what happened to you? Stevie?” His hands flew to Steve’s jaw, fluttering worriedly around his bruised face, thumb wiping a spot of blood from under his nose, briefly light-dab touching at his split lip with his breathing too high and shallow and oh god oh god, Steve was hurt, something happened and there were at least two bruises on his face and his eyelashes were clumped together and his lips were all swollen and Bucky ran his thumb over Steve's mouth again, opening his own to ask Steve what the hell happened, again--

\--and Steve knocked his hands off. Smacking his touch aside hard enough to sting and never, not once in every time he'd gotten in a fight, no matter how bad it'd been or how simple, no matter how much Bucky was fussing, no matter if it'd been in Brooklyn or during the war, Steve'd never once smacked Bucky's hands off. 

He'd protested and whined and tried to wiggle away and bitched and complained and insisted he was fine, but he'd never hit Bucky off him before and honestly, there wasn't anything to do but take his hands back. Snapping away burned, like he'd touched fire. Except really, he had. 

Startled wasn't anywhere near the right word to describe the look on Bucky's face right now. 

Steve kicked off his shoes in one fluid motion that ended with him brushing past Bucky with a wicked scowl and Bucky couldn't help it, it was instinct that had him spinning and grabbing onto Steve's shoulder. 

It was all happening too quickly for Bucky to get a proper grip and Steve yanked free instantly, almost slamming into the wall to get away and he wasn't letting Bucky touch him and Bucky had no idea what he was supposed to do. 

Which was better than Steve was feeling. Because he had no idea what he'd just _done._

He didn't want to be sharp and short and rude to Bucky too because he deserved it least of anyone and he looked so goddamned distressed, fumbling at the edges of Steve's peripherals with a hand running shakily throwing his usually perfect pomade and--

Shit. Shit shit shit shit, was he just...was he thinking that way about B--

No. No, Bucky was worried about him and following him into his bedroom and fretting and Steve was Not Going To Go There. 

So he thought Bucky was attractive. So he sometimes had to mentally check himself on how much affection showed on his face. 

That didn't mean anything. That didn't mean--

Steve'd just kissed a _man_. 

And Bucky was trying to take his face, his shoulder, trying to touch him when he should be running as far away from Steve as possible. 

Was Steve--

Did he--

He'd always known Bucky was attractive. He’d forced himself to push all those thoughts aside, never let himself think about it because he didn’t want to stroke Bucky’s ego, not because-- because--

Because he was actually attracted to him. Right? 

Bucky just meant a lot to him, had burrowed himself deep in Steve’s veins and that was _all_ , that’s what Steve was protecting himself from. He was afraid if Bucky knew how much he valued their friendship, he’d split from Steve being too clingy. Not because he’d been thinking...those thoughts. 

He couldn’t. People didn’t. That’s not how men’s minds worked. Men were attracted to women, it was in their biology. And even if through some mistake, Steve’s mind had been fucked at some point...it was physically impossible for him to be like that now. Steve’s cells had been purified, perfected. A fault that big...it was a flaw the serum _couldn’t_ miss. If Steve actually liked...liked _fellas_ at any point during his life, the perfect cellular structure would’ve shot out that disease.

So then _why the fuck had he kissed Jack?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come [yell at me](http://highwaytostairway.tumblr.com/ask) or leave comments those are the best things ever
> 
> I'm yelling too I promise
> 
> xx


	6. fields of green that wilted like a last summer rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I am so sorry it took me a fucking ... ridiculous amount of time to update this, never again will I let you down so. to be fair I've had college and just finished a 730k masterpiece, I was a little busy. 
> 
> 2) oh boy. now that we have all that fluff stuff done, get ready for some motherfucking plot twists fam. 
> 
> there's actually not a lot of plot twists in this one, but you think the last chapter was anything, that was _nothing_ I have some wonderful plans for this fic okay and I am excited as HELL. 
> 
> on that note, I hope you enjoy! it's....long it's like a 30k chapter which is long for this fic I suppose
> 
> OH and warnings: period-accurate internal homophobia/homophobia in general, violence, mysterious bruises, yelling lots of yelling and frankly awful communication, puking.
> 
> xx

There were only so many diners in New York, and only one decent one within walking distance of the SSR. It wasn't hard to figure out. 

He'd taken a few days off, and after forty-eight hours of not leaving his apartment, Jack Thompson decided answers were at least better than hiding. 

And if the fading bruise on his jaw was any indication, he'd hit close to home with that comment and Rogers wasn't gonna be visiting the diner anytime soon. 

His guess was confirmed faster than he'd imagined, swinging through the revolving doors to have a pretty waitress in pale blue perk up, turn to him quickly in excitement only to slump a little and bustle back to the counter. 

"Thought that was USA for a heartbeat," the waitress half-whispered and the person she spoke to suddenly lifted their head, spinning to look at the door. A waiter, outfit pressed and hair curled to the side in that way the ladies fainted over, shockingly light eyes and a hopeful twitch on his mouth. 

Something was really familiar about that mouth. 

"He hasn't been in all week, is he alright?" The waitress pressed and the waiter finally tore his eyes away, scrubbing hard at the counter. 

"Steve's just been out of it," he muttered and Jack slowly lowered himself in a booth. He'd been right about the diner, then. 

And the man glaring moodily down at the counter? 

That was James Barnes. 

 

"Oh hiiii Peggy!” The sudden coo behind her had her nearly dropping her keys, looking up startled as the over-eager blonde appeared from nowhere. It took everything she had not to bark because it was just Dottie, she was hardly a harm. “I haven't seen you around in a whiiiile, where have you _been_?"

The quick apologetic smile and brisk walk for the staircase would’ve been enough of a hint for most girls, but Dottie just picked up her pace to click her heels right next to Peggy’s.

"Just around,” She dismissed, smiling tight-lipped through her red lipstick. Dottie just blinked big expectant eyes and Peggy sighed internally, wishing the nosy neighbor wasn’t so damn hard to shake. “In a bit of a hurry today though. I have some...errands to run."

"They have anything to do with that phone call you got this morning?" Dottie pressed, all wide-eyed curiosity and Peggy dug around in her purse for nothing, praying the distraction would mean less questions.

"Hmm? Oh, uh. Yes. Family friend, some things to discuss."

"Oooo, that sounds like an adventure!” Dottie clapped her hands, nine-hundred-times too eager as she sped up a tad to keep in step down the hallway. “I'm not doing anything today, can I come along?"

She’d sooner take Bucky himself than the blonde gossip to Howard Stark’s - especially considering how distracted he got around girls like Dottie - but it was just her luck Dot was so persistent.

"I'm afraid it'll be rather boring," Peggy dismissed, reaching for the door only to be intercepted with that ever-bright smile.

"Oh pshaw, I'm sure it'll be great! Besides, I could always get to know more people--"

"Really, I'm quite sorry Dottie, but it's just not a good day. Maybe some other time?"

She didn’t mean to be sharp, but she was late and this was top secret and she’d never met anybody quite so nosy and maybe she was a little on edge but that didn’t make it any easier to watch the joyful face suddenly deflate. 

"Oh. Oh, well okay then.” Dottie gave her a little wave that Peggy returned with a tight smile, starting for the taxi at the curb. A manicured fragile hand cupped around Dottie’s big mouth and she shouted a little more cheerfully over the bustle. “I hope you and your family friend work things out!"

"So do I," Peggy muttered to herself, closing the taxi door behind her. “Stark residence, please.”

 

"Look, I just don't think it's gonna be proof enough." 

"Are you-- are you bloody kidding me?" 

"Ironically, no. The sample you got--"

"Worked my behind off to get," Peggy interjected and Howard sighed, sitting down his goggles. 

"...it's just not gonna cut it for proof. Say there's a match, somehow, the technology is all my own and while that means it's the best, I still haven't exactly tested it on something this--" gloves flashed as Howard waved his arms around, like any hand motion could ever capture how much of a mess this'd become. 

"--important. Besides, a match for DNA isn't gonna mean half as much as real, solid proof that it's actually Barnes. And as much as neither of us don't want it to be true, I'd like some semblance of reassurance we at least tried every angle of this thing."

"So what do you suggest I need?"

"Anything, Peg. Anything at all."

 

That wasn't much to go from. 

However, Bucky's weird behavior she'd been lowkey keeping an eye on? That was. 

 

"And you said you put him under for the visit? At his request?" Peggy straightened the glasses on her nose, carefully American-accented words slow enough to give her time to write the doctor's answers. 

"Yes ma'am, he seemed very... uncomfortable, with the whole situation. The nurses here are trained to differentiate between general soldier discomfort and the more likely Prisoner of War reluctance to be examined. I assume that's part of why you're here?" 

"Yes yes, the department is aware of his time served. So there was no protest to the anesthesiology at all? No...mishaps?" Peggy glanced up over the black frames and the doctor shuffled a few papers of his own, straightening in his chair. 

"No, he went under regularly. One odd thing though, he did refuse to get picked up. He insisted on walking home despite the aftereffects of being under. Seemed dazed, but I assume he made it home fine."

"He did, thank you. And the results of the tests?" 

The doctor held out one of the Manila files and Peggy tried not to grab it to quickly, flipping it open casually and thumbing through the documents while the doctor gave an overview. 

"Everything came out perfectly. I've never seen someone in such good health before. I'd be shocked he was a POW if I hadn't seen how shaken he was beforehand. But the whole checkup showed nothing but healthy, functioning muscles, BPM, the works. The only flaw in his entire system was a pretty nasty chip on the bone of his left shoulder, where it connects to his humerus. He was aware of it though, and there's not much we can do in terms of bone damage at this point."

"Hmm," Peggy replied distractedly, scanning over the vitals and data herself. Bucky being in perfect health should've been comforting, but when it came to this? Quite the opposite. She had no _idea_ what perfect health meant, or if it had anything to do with their investigation or the blood sample or any of it, frankly, and there wasn't much she hated more than not knowing. "Thank you for your work, doctor. May I have a copy of this file?"

 

After. After, when he'd come stumbling home to his apartment and Peggy and Angie had been waiting for him with soup - that'd all been the effects of the anesthesia. It made sense now, why he'd fallen asleep on Steve's shoulder during their chess game, why he'd suddenly gotten dizzy just from standing. 

But why hadn't he simply told them?

Why had he hid the doctor's appointment, and why did he act so strangely after? He'd said something, that'd struck a chord in Peggy's head --

Something about getting better too quickly. He'd grumbled it under his breath, but did that...

Wait. 

Did that mean he _knew_? Did. Did Bucky Barnes know he might be a victim of a strange experiment? Did he know more about this than they did? 

Peggy slowly placed the newest Project Italy file down in her desk drawer, turning the lock with a snap. 

This may be even bigger, more twisted, uglier than they thought. 

 

 

It was on his third day in the diner that his waitress switched out from the blonde, the brunette, to the waiter he'd been coming here for. 

Jack only stayed for a half hour each time, but there was a lot to be discovered from across the room. 

Primarily, that the Howling Commandos weren’t the only ones who thought the moon revolved around Sergeant Barnes. Every woman who swung through the doors was looking his way first, and by the second day it was pretty clear that half the population at the diner weren’t coming for the food.

But even more fascinating, Jack finally placed why the hell Barnes looked so familiar. All those times he’d seen glimpses of Rogers’ notebook - in particular, those girly sloped lips he’d deemed “Mystery Girl’s” and Rogers got all riled up over? Those didn’t belong to a girl at all. That was Sergeant Barnes’ mouth. 

The fact that Steve Rogers was drawing another man’s mouth would’ve been confusing as hell a month ago, but considering the taste Jack still had on his lips half a week later? He had a pretty good idea why Rogers got bright red and so damned defensive about his friend; and it didn’t have shit to do with being fellow soldiers. 

It was his third consecutive day in this diner, and Bucky Barnes was headed his way with a cup of coffee balanced perfectly on a one-handed tray. 

“Goodmorning,” Barnes piped cheerily, setting his coffee down in front of him with a smile. “How’re we doing today? Anything on the menu catching your eye?”

Jack sat down the folded script, opening his mouth to reply when the bubbly waitress from yesterday went breezing by the table, 

"Hey Brooklyn, note for you up front."

"Thanks Ang, soon as I'm done here," he replied cheerily, scratching something in the corner of his ordering pad. 

Brooklyn, that was an interesting nickname. Maybe Barnes and Rogers knew each other before the war, then, if they were both from across the bridge. 

Bucky turned back to him, pencil poised and cheery smile on his face, question on his lips but Jack furrowed his eyebrows and pointed a nonchalant finger before he could speak. 

"Brooklyn, interesting nickname. Ever shorten that to Brook?" 

Barnes's smile widened into something real, amused, eyes crinkling as he tipped his head charmingly. "Actually, that's a first."

Jack took a sip of the newly-delivered coffee contemplatively, scanning over the menu a brief second longer. 

"It's a good name," he finally offered, squinting a little as he looked back up at the waiter. "Sounds...like a soldier nickname."

"Kinda does, huh? Well then, it's good for me." Barnes gave him another smile and Jack sat down his menu, looking at Bucky properly, forcing the cockiness out of his voice because yes, he'd been right, but now wasn't the time to cave and say he already knew all about who Barnes was. 

"You fight?" He asked instead. 

"107th, European front." The reply was a little proud and Jack could almost see him in uniform, pristine pressed pre-shipout and that note of a young soldiers' innocence in his voice. 

"Okinawa," Jack offered in return, more proud than he felt, more proud than he'd ever felt about it even before the end. Dark eyebrows lifted and with a slow nod, registering the stories he must've heard about Jap soil fighting and cognizing to overlay it with the man in front of him. 

"Huh. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you..." Barnes stuck out a hand in offering and Jack took it, shaking once with a smile ~~and a plan~~ of his own. 

"Jack. And a pleasure to meet you too, Brook."

 

It wasn't like he was avoiding the diner. 

Wasn't like he was avoiding Bucky. 

He just...space. 

Space, he needed to think and he needed to not spend every waking moment mollified or horrified and for some reason he just couldn't bring himself to go sit in those cheery booths like everything was _alright._

Like he wasn't cringing every time he met blue eyes in the mirror. 

But it'd been days. 

It...it wasn't getting better. Nothing was changing, he could still taste on his mouth--

It'd been five days and if the sting hadn't faded by now, avoiding wasn't gonna make it go away and he couldn't not-talk to Bucky for the rest of his life, right? 

Definitely right. 

He'd just go in, start small. Slice of pie and go, no lingering or drawing or anything, but it'd be a change and it'd mean a start and he needed a step in _some_ direction because he was so dizzy from spinning in circles the constant wave of nausea was starting to feel like drowning. 

The busiest hour, so Buck couldn't sit down and ask him what the hell was wrong. 

Steve pushed through the revolving door. 

Like he'd guessed, no one's heads turned his direction, too busy, no way Bucky could pester hi--

Because. Because he was sitting down across from someone already? The back of his head was unmistakable, even through the bustle across the distance between them, the bright chimes of his laugh cutting through the chatting noises and Steve had to take a step to the left to see around Buck, see who the hell was important enough to sit and laugh with in the middle of rush hour--

That. That was. 

That was Jack Thompson. 

Steve hadn't seen him for longer than a brief second in passing with averted eyes in the office during a rushed commotion but there he was, real, in the flesh with the mouth Steve'd--

That mouth was curled into a smile, amused and more genuine than'd ever been directed towards him and. 

And Jack Thompson was here and Steve's mind was going to explode but that wasn't even the worst part. 

Jack was sitting with Bucky. Bucky and Jack, were sitting together, laughing and smiling and Steve was gonna be sick. 

 

The cool sidewalk air hit his face like a slap but Steve was still numb, staring at the dull reflection in the revolving glass doors and watching the distraught man shrink to nothing, smaller than even before, suspenders slipping loose to the ground and swimming in fabric and lies and time and he couldn't breathe, his lungs were closing up all over again--

"Hey Mister, watch where you're standing!" 

Steve's shoulder jostled and the bone didn't break, perfect skin didn't bruise and he lifted a hand to apologize to the hurried businessman and too-big fingers curled like they weren't even his and honestly right now, how much of Steve was a lie? 

His body, his mind? He'd betrayed himself in so many--

Work. He had to get to work. 

Steve straightened up, adjusted his tie. Suspenders still snug, shoulders still tall and he almost wished he weren't so massive but. There was nothing he could do about it now. 

Nothing he could do about any of it. 

Except steel his step and march to the office. 

And interrogate Bucky when he got home. 

The door closed louder than it should've and Steve flinched, nearly cutting his finger in the process. He was making dinner because honestly his hands couldn't stay still and he was so afraid of what he'd draw if he'd pick up a pencil that he hadn't let himself near a piece of blank paper since--

Since--

"How was the diner?" Steve asked the pot, sliding carrot slices off the cutting board into bubbling broth. 

Bucky paused at the threshold of the kitchen, quiet and strumming with energy that Steve could feel all the way from over here and he wasn't gonna turn around but he knew the look Bucky had on his face anyways. 

"...fine," a cautious voice echoed over his shoulder and Steve nodded, biting his lip and setting the cutting board back on the counter. Perfect time to cut the onions, right? 

Bucky was so surprised Steve addressed a question in his direction that he was still frozen and how had it _come_ to this? 

"Nothing interesting?" Steve adjusted his grip on the knife and slid through sharp layers, trying not to think about how many he'd peeled away and exposed in his own head last week. 

"Pretty boring day," Bucky said flatly and if that were true, why was he laughing with Jack Thompson? Were they friends now? Was sitting together...regular?? 

Why was Jack doing this? Was it intentional? It had to be, there was no way that was a coincidence. What, was he gonna tell Bucky? Ruin Steve's life for ruining his? 

"Steve? Steve, are you okay?" 

"Hmm?" He sniffed, wiping the back of his hand under an eye. "Fine. Onions."

Bucky stared at him in his peripherals and Steve chopped faster. 

"Okay."

A brisk nod and Bucky sighed, drifting back out of the kitchen with silent feet. Steve had to call on everything not to let his drag on the way to dump onions in to boil. 

Steve's blood felt about that stable in his veins, heated and bubbling and evaporating, betraying him just like his own hands, mouth had. 

Always had. 

 

Dinner was eaten in silence. 

Cleaning up was silent too. 

About to part ways to separate rooms victorious when Bucky shattered it all, reached over and grabbed Steve's wrist. 

"Steve, will you _please_ practice with me?"

"Bucky--"

"C'mon. You practiced last week," Buck argued and Steve slipped his wrist free. 

"I’m no good at dancing," he tried and Bucky scoffed, crystal eyes rolling. 

"Right, yeah, okay." The sarcasm was so heavy Steve was starting to get the impression that Bucky was actually upset with him. 

Probably was. 

"I'd step on your feet," Steve insisted and the frustrated sound Bucky made was almost worse than the flash of betrayal as Steve took a step backwards. 

Bucky followed, a step forward and Steve wanted to curl up in a ball or go sprinting in the other direction, anything to get Bucky to stop looking at him like that. But Buck only lifted his chin, held Steve's gaze like a challenge and he couldn't tear away. 

"I’m not some dame--" Bucky started and the world flashed red. 

Not a dame. Right. Dames, which is who Steve should be having feelings for, should be dancing with, and Bucky was trying to get Steve to dance with _him_ , who was very clearly _not_ a dame and funny enough, the last person Steve kissed was also Not A Dame and this was a Huge Fucking Problem and Bucky kept fucking _pushing_ and the _last person that’d done that’d been thrown up against a wall and kissed_ \--

so he should shut the fuck up right now for all their sakes. 

“Stop asking, okay?” Steve snapped, shoving past Bucky’s stupid broad shoulders, gritting his teeth against the hurt sound and the probably big blue hurt eyes and Steve didn’t give a fuck, couldn’t give a fuck, he needed his fucking head sorted because he didn’t even know what his own head _was_ anymore.

Storming off didn’t make him feel any better, and neither did the quiet reluctant sound of Bucky sighing, taking a deep breath before his quiet feet started dancing around the apartment on his own. 

 

There was a lot on her mind and the world kept spiralizing crazier and crazier, but she had to say the last thing she was expecting this morning was a hand suddenly closing around her elbow and dragging her so fast out of the hallway she was stumbling on her heels. 

“Wha--”

It wasn’t Steve, because he would’ve slammed a hand over her mouth, Howard wasn’t strong enough to pull her that fast that hard, Daniel wouldn’t dare and no one else had reason to be in the SSR, but for some reason it still surprised her as she blinked up open-mouthed at Jack Thompson’s perfect hair and sharp blue eyes. 

“Jack, what--”

“Carter, you got somethin’ to say for yourself?”

“I might ask the same of you, dragging me off into the shadows like that!” She yanked her arm back and Thompson’s glare didn’t lessen even the slightest. 

“What happened to _I wouldn’t tell a soul_?”

“What could you possibly be jabbering on about--”

“Okinawa! The white flag!” Jack hissed, shooting a glance around the corner at the empty hallway and all the pent-up worry drained right out of her because bloody hell, this wasn’t about James, she must be going _mad_ , like Jack could possibly have _anything_ to do with that. 

“What about it? I told you it wouldn’t change anything,” she started to console, only the agent glowering in the shadows suddenly hardened even more, mouth tight at the corners as his eyes flashed and he towered, 

“Except it changes _everything_ when you spill the whole damn story to _Rogers_.” 

Oh. 

Oh dear. She’d just been trying to help, to get Steve to sympathize, see there was more than that asshole facade, that behind the pretty soldier face there was just a kid who’d been dragged into the war too young and forced into too much, every step weighed down by this impossible guilt--

But apparently, it’d backfired. 

“Jack, I was just trying to help.”

“Well you made everything a _hellofalot_ worse.” A disbelieving huff and those eyebrows went up and Thompson was pushing off from the wall, glare narrowing into that scorn he hadn’t aimed her way in months and. “Watch if I ever trust _you_ again, Carter. So much for being worth your while, huh? Soldiers don’t rat on other soldiers, but I never should’ve expected that kinda honor outta a _girl_.” 

Thompson shoved past her, knocking her shoulder sideways and Peggy couldn’t help but call after him, one more desperate, “Jack!”

She was so, so sorry. 

“That’s Agent Thompson to you,” he snapped back, barely glancing over his shoulder, then the clicking heels were retreating down the hallway and how was _everything_ falling apart?

 

Frankly, she was worried. And Angie Martinelli did not worry on a regular basis. Grams said it gave all sorts of early wrinkle lines. But right now, she could give a damn to wrinkle lines. The bridge connecting Brooklyn to the rest of New York had to've been demolished or something, he'd been so _off_ lately. Because Steve was off. Domino effect that was crushing Barnes even more than Rogers. 

She'd been planning an intervention for some time but that was delicate business, she aught to really take the moment and find a good strategy. 

But by the time the second week rolled around, strategy was about the last thing in her mind. She wanted Brooklyn better and she wanted that to happen _now_. 

“Your hands are shaking.”

Bucky looked up like someone’d slapped him and Angie kept her eyebrows raised, mouth pursed as she leaned one elbow on the counter next to him. 

“They're not-- I'm fine. It's just getting cold.”

“More like Steve is getting cold and you're so stressed you're almost spilling the jam aga-- Brooklyn, gee whiz, nearly painted both our aprons cherry red! Hand it over, I'll take it.”

“Angie,” Bucky started and she waved one hand in dismissal, grabbing the open jar of jam with the other before he ruined the counter next. She literally _just_ cleaned that counter, she'd smack him upside the head if he spoiled it again. 

“Listen, if you need to talk, I'm right here.” She screwed the lid on the jam, eyes on Bucky the whole time as he sighed, leaning back against the counter and straightening his yellow ascot, hat still tipped sideways to hell the way it always ended up somehow. 

“I told you, I'm fine.”

“Wait, don't tell me. You're just as stubborn and invincible as Carter.” 

Bucky did look relatively guilty at that, shifting his weight and shoving both hands in his pockets, pretty blue eyes staring down at his shoes instead. 

“I...don't wanna make you feel rejected or anythin’...”

“Great! Then tell me how you're feeling about Steve.” Angie perched her chin in one hand and Bucky scuffed his toe on the also-just-cleaned shiny diner floors. 

“It just. Sucks. That's all.” Light blue shoulders rolled back, the pouty frown twitching up at one end in a depressingly accurate imitation of his normal playful smile. “I'm sure things’ll be back to normal in a jiff. Not like my heart’s breakin’ outta my chest or anything, Ang.”

Angie leaned up on the tip of her heels, placing the jam on the shelf behind the counter, giving Bucky’s facade a moment to sink while she watched in her peripherals. Only it didn’t. The smile wasn't just to convince her then. 

She sighed as she stepped back flat, brushing imaginary dust off her apron so she didn't have to look at the fake sparkles in those pretty blues. 

“Speakin’a your heart...the other day, when Dot was in here? You said somethin about. Your heart being taken?” She dared a glance upwards but Brooklyn’s mask didn't have a single crack, all easy soft patience as he waited, one eyebrow raised. “You mean that?” 

“Mean my heart bein’ taken? Why?” One hip kicked out, settling in against the back counter with a touch of amusement in the expression that'd been so pained just a few moments ago. 

“You can tell me,” Angie swore, leaning forward just a touch so Bucky understood just how serious she was being. “I told _you_ and it can’t possibly be that bad.”

“Actually it can,” he muttered, teasing gaze cutting away with a crease of discomfort between eyebrows. Angie raised one of hers, watching a moment longer as she gathered what to say next because it had to be just right if Brooklyn was gonna trust her--

The swinging door chimed and Bucky shot upright, all traces of emotion wiped as he beamed at the incomer, adjusting his hat straight as he started for the door without so much as a glance her way. 

“Jack! Lunch here again, you'll be a regular soon if you keep this up.”

Angie sighed, turning away from the random blonde ex-soldier Bucky was clapping on the shoulder. How was she ever supposed to help when no one told her anything? 

 

So maybe it was about more than the pie. Maybe it was about more than seeing Bucky maybe it was about seeing who Bucky was with. 

He just needed to make sure it was a fluke, some one time random thing. Not some conspiracy against him or anything. Jack wouldn't. It wasn't like he'd risk his reputation by telling Bucky. Would he? Or could he read them both well enough to know that Bucky’d never expose Jack for that, he'd just hate Steve for the rest of his life?

For about the nine hundredth time in his life, Steve found himself wishing he could hate Bucky for being that runaround social butterfly, but as it was he couldn't do a damn thing, it was his own fault his best friend was the finest fella around. 

At least. That's what all the gals said. Steve didn't have a single opinion on it. I mean, obviously, Buck was good-looking but Steve wasn't questioning the way he felt he just wasn't blind, he could tell when someone was physically--

Jesus H. Christ. His brain needed to shut up, palms were already on the revolving diner door and it was a little late to turn back now. 

Either he was going insane, or his best friend was sitting in the booth across from his worst enemy, smile so wide Steve’s heart stuttered and his feet followed suit. 

How could Buck do this to him? How could Jack do this to him!? This was _so_ much worse than a some kiss--

Well. Maybe not. God, he couldn't believe he'd actually--

Someone bumped into him from behind as he was blocking the path outta the revolving door but at least it snapped his head back on straight to apologize quickly, start for that goddamned booth even quicker. 

Before he lost his nerve, truthfully. 

Crystal eyes flicked up the moment before Steve opened his mouth, brilliant smile falling at the corners and confusion furrowing the tilted head. 

“Buck, hey, you wouldn't happen to know your Thanksgiving schedule yet?” He rushed before he could change his mind, hands shoved so deep in his pockets he might break through the stitching but better that than see them shake, match the lilt in his voice. 

“Dugan sent a telegram and I didn't get the chance to ask before you left this morning--” Jack was glaring up at him and Steve faltered, taking a step to the side and pretending to finally realize he was there. “Oh! Agent Thompson.”

An awkward nod and Jack straightened his tie, mouth twisted in a grimace--

Jesus Christ, he wasn't looking at his mouth. Steve turned his head away as Thompson stood, returning the stilted nod in his peripherals. 

Bucky stood too, gaze darting between them both, straightening his apron subconsciously as his eyes finally landed on Steve. 

“You two know each other?”

“Bucky, can I talk to you a moment?" Rogers clapped a hand on Barnes’ shoulder, something palpable and definitely not verbal passing between them. 

Jack watched as Steve pulled the diner boy aside, nearly all the way to the kitchen. Something told him Rogers wouldn't hesitate to drag him all the way in there, that this diner was as familiar territory to him as it was to Barnes. 

And so was Barnes himself, because they were standing way too close and neither seemed to notice. Hushed whispers, talking intensely and Jack could only imagine what kinda concocted thing Steve was spinning now. 

At one point Barnes shot a confused glance over his shoulder then turned back to Steve and shrugged, hands waving as he explained something. The look Rogers gave him in return was about as icy and serious as Jack’d ever seen him, then Barnes was huffing and shouldering past Steve to the back room, leaving the blonde to stride back to the revolving door, bitter glare in his direction before he disappeared behind shining glass. 

Another waitress - Angie or something - brought him his bill and Jack left a tip that was nowhere near making up for that drama but about as close as he could get. 

 

“Oh Peg, I can't even say how great it is to see a smiling face around here.” Angie tossed her rag down on the counter and folded a frail hand on her hip. “Seriously, they say we’re dramatic but those _boys_.”

Peggy dumped her purse on the counter, pulling up her favorite bar stool, English accent just as exotic and cute as ever. “Please don't tell me Bucky’s as bad as Steve’s been.” 

“Worse,” Angie announced, grabbing the special mug from the shelf she kept it for Carter. “As if avoiding each other wasn't awful enough, now they're gettin’ into confrontations in the middle’a lunch hour!”

One eyebrow quirked, perfect corner of red lips twitching up to match. 

“What a bloody awful mess. Just when I thought the fights in the office were settling down, God knows Steve’s gonna take that out in glares at Thompson.” 

“That wouldn't happen to be Jack Thompson now, would it?” Angie tipped the kettle over Peggy’s mug and the slender fingers folded around it prettily. 

“Actually, yes. Blonde fellow, nice blue eyes, bi’of’a jackass?” Peggy innocently took a sip of her tea and Angie pursed her lips to keep from smiling. 

“Don't know about that last part, but definitely the first two.” She tilted her head, setting the kettle back as she pondered what little she'd seen of the man. “Funny, what's he got USA glarin’ at’im for? Wrote ‘im up his bill today, after Brooklyn had some things to do in the back. Seemed awful quiet to me.”

“Jack? I daresay I’d call him generous before quiet. But he was here? At the diner? Didn't happen to be the same time Steve was?” 

“Actually. Now that I think about it, must’abeen right about the same time the Boys got in that whisper fight…”

 

“Sousa! I needed those reports on my desk _yesterday._ ”

Daniel looked up, categorizing Thompson’s Level of Pissed as he stalked by and coming up with an unfortunate 9/10. 

Which had been the case a lot lately. 

He sucked in a breath and held his tongue because there was no point talking sense when Jack got like that. Might as well start those reports before the Full Wrath rained down upon him. 

Thing was, he'd usually have them done and turned in by now, but. He'd been a bit busy lately. 

Truly, he did feel a bit guilty about snooping. But, he rationalized to himself, it wasn't snooping if it was for her own protection. 

Not that Peggy Carter needed his protection. 

Okay, curiosity then?

For the good of the company, of everyone! There were plenty of reasons. 

Because Agent Carter was being suspicious as hell and frankly, he was pretty sure it had something to with the case. Their case, the company case, only she wasn't reporting anything and he had a feeling she knew a lot more than anyone at the office did. 

So snooping through her desk while she was running lunch orders for Thompson was the best thing he could do for the SSR at this point. 

Okay, first, she had a hell of a lot of mysterious phone calls. There wasn't any excuse he had to trace the calls of another Agent’s phone without blowing this whole thing outta proportion. But she took notes sometimes, on something, so maybe a simple shading over her notebook to see the most recent thing she’d written. 

This is definitely not crazy, Sousa told himself as he lowered himself cautiously in Peggy’s chair, glancing around at the totally oblivious agents before grabbing a spare piece of paper and a pencil, angling the graphite sideways and sweeping over the notepad, holding his breath as letters and numbers started to form. 

__

_HS._

  
_

17:30

_

Okay. Well, that was a start. HS could be anything really. Two letters, and one of them was an S so that could stand for surgery? Hip surgery maybe? Only Carter’s file didn't have a thing about injuries that required a surgery. H could be hospital, so maybe she had an appointment with hospital staff? About what? She didn't have any relatives in her file either. 

Okay, two letters in that fancy familiar scrawl - maybe it was initials? That could be nearly anyone, though. Maybe it wasn't the letters he should be looking at, then, time to decipher the numbers. 

If it was from this morning, it was pretty likely that was five-thirty today, since she hadn't written a date. 

If it were a regular appointment though, wouldn't she write 5:30? But she hadn't, she'd put it in military time. So perhaps it was a meeting then, with someone else that'd served too. 

So she had a meeting with a military friend with the initials H.S. That narrowed things down quite considerably. Now how he was gonna get ahold of a file of her known military associates, he had no idea. 

Speaking of files. 

He slid open the top drawer on her desk, raising an amused eyebrow at the stash of snacks lined up next to office supplies. Okay, nothing there. 

He'd seen her working on a file, the same Manila kind they always used, only the paper clip on the top never changed and that meant it wasn't passing hands. The most frustrating thing about the office files was that at least half the joes were lefties and paper clipped everything backwards at some point. 

Not on Peggy’s file though. 

The next drawer down opened up to quite a bit of case work, but after checking the room again and thumbing quickly through it, there were enough files with backwards paper clips to all look basically in order. 

Next drawer--

\--was locked. Well, that was curious. Carter wasn't given a lot of sensitive material. He didn't even think her desk had a lock on it. 

The mystery file had to be in there. He certainly didn't have time to jimmy it now though, she'd be back any moment and he still had to hobble back to his desk. 

Which he made just in time, plopping down in his seat right as Carter came sweeping back through the door, pen tucked behind her ear and nearly disappearing around a soft curl, one eyebrow quirking at Sousa as she strode past his desk to place the orders on the office door. 

Right. He should be getting back to work of his own. 

Sousa sighed, glancing down at the scratch-paper in his hand one more time. H.S. Who could that be? 

Well, he'd certainly never find out if he got fired for never finishing Thompson’s reports. 

Daniel folded the paper carefully, sliding it in his trousers pocket and glancing over his shoulder as Carter slipped back into her desk chair, opening up her snack drawer and pulling out a case file at the same time. He really didn't mean to smile at that. 

She glanced up right as he was about to turn around, eyebrow arching not again but a little smile on her lips this time, dark red curling up just a little under warm bright eyes and Sousa most definitely did not blush and duck his head away. 

It'd probably be entirely too crazy to follow Carter after she left the office, try’n figure out who that HS was. Wouldn't it? Then again, who knows how long until he had a lead like this? 

Maybe it really was nothing. But see, if he followed her this evening and it proved to be nothing, he could stop snooping and everything would go positively back to normal. Right? 

“Sousa! Have you gotten a single thing done since I last asked?”

Well. He'd follow her if he didn't get kicked outta here before they clocked out at five and at this rate, it wasn't exactly looking good. 

Why Jack was all up in arms lately he had _no_ idea, but maybe, if he actually got some work done, he could add What's Wrong With Thompson to the investigate list too.

With a deep sigh he reached over, flicked open another file, and set his pen to paper. Sometimes it felt like he was the only sane one left in this place. 

 

The only thing getting him through this shift was the pure annoyance in his veins, bussing tables just out of spite at the world his existence in itself. 

But the breath of fresh air as he stepped out back, clock checked out and his uniform left in the work locker two doors behind him, really didn't feel as fresh or freeing as he'd been hoping. 

Fuck. He couldn't even enjoy the simplest of things, the rush of relief of _home_ when the dread just shifted in his stomach from Home! to _home._

Aka Steve Rogers ruining his life with all that distant pissiness. 

You know what? He was gonna end this. 

He was gonna end this right now. 

Bucky stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, spinning on one heel and turning right back around. Steve was getting off work right about now. Bucky was gonna walk him the fuck home. 

Which was how, fourteen minutes later, he found himself leaning against the outside wall of The Phone Company building, arms crossed over his chest and distantly wishing he'd had the chance to pick up smoking when they were teens. If it weren't for those god damn asthmatic lungs. 

“James?”

His head snapped up at the familiar crisp accent, dislodging his pomade enough to make him run fingers through it to smooth it carefully to the side again, one side of his mouth twitching up. 

“Carter, fancy seeing you here.” He didn’t bother moving off the wall, hooking one thumb towards the door she’d just spun out of. “Waitin’ on Rogers. He on his way down?”

Peggy looked him over curiously, eyebrows knit in a strange expression like she was trying to figure something out but there was nothing here to see, just a fella waitin’ on his asshole of a best friend to get out of work so he couldn’t just go storming into his room when they got back to their apartment. 

“He was in a meeting when I left…” she offered finally, readjusting the purse on her arm. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Unless you happen to know why that jackass has been avoiding me?”

Carter snorted, one eyebrow arching up as the painted red lips curved in a bit of a smile. Bucky decided a long time ago his favorite thing about that gal was how much she cursed, which meant he could too. Only dame he’d curse around without thinkin’ twice and sometimes that was just refreshing as hell. 

“I’m afraid that’s hardly in my job description.” There was something in that, something she wasn’t telling him, but if it was about Steve, she _would_ , this was Peggy Carter and she knew exactly how much that blonde idiot meant to him. So that twisted mask of a smile was exactly about what he really wished it wouldn’t be. 

“From what I heard, that job description don’t entail half’a what it should. Lemme know if there’s any SSR higher-ups I need to take out, aight? Not all of us have Captain America’s morals, y’know.” 

She laughed, a tipped-head pretty thing, brown curls bouncing as she shook her head at him and he was smiling too but they both knew, under all that, Bucky wasn’t kidding a single fucking bit. 

And neither of the broken hearted cracks behind their matching pretty facades could hide when that lovely smile was nothing but a goddamn mirror and the ugly truth wasn't half as romantic as brown and blue eyes promised. 

“Take care, James,” she called over her shoulder, then those black heels were clack-clack clacking away and Bucky watched her go, bright speck of sharp color in the middle of all that New York gray and wasn’t she somethin’ else. Steve sure did know how to pick’em. 

He’d never understood, really, why the two of them weren’t dating officially, but everytime he brought it up Steve got all red and blushy and mumbled something about right time right place and Bucky just ended up sighing because there was only so much he could do as a wingman - and it wasn’t like Peggy couldn’t snag him up with or without Bucky’s help, regardless, so maybe it was work? That’d be a typical Rogers move, wouldn’t wanna upset the work environment by making out with a coworker in the back or anything, right? 

The door swung open again, jilting him outta his thoughts, head perking up and jeez, wasn’t that ironic, the other fella in Peggy’s life that he had no idea why she wasn’t with. 

“Daniel?” 

The jerk of surprise was timed poorly enough to make his crutch just miss the concrete and Bucky jumped to catch him automatically, Steve’d fallen enough time on those fragile bones as a kid he had the reflexes for it, but Daniel straightened up and waved him back before he could. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” he greeted, a little outta breath and kinda jittery, glancing over his shoulder in concern. 

“I told you Daniel, you can call me Bucky.” 

“Yeah, I.” Sousa looked back at him, tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and he was gesturing behind him, pulse in his neck thudding. “Will do, I just. I’d love to stay and talk but I’m in quite a hurry.”

“No worries,” Bucky waved a dismissing hand, glancing behind Sousa for him. Ah ha. See, he could do some sleuthing too. “If you hurry, you just might catch her.”

“Yeah mayb-- what?” Sousa was suddenly staring at him, caught out and Bucky’s eyebrows crinkled, lifting in the center. 

“Hey, man. I ain’t judgin’. For all I know you wanna talk about something work related, right? No worries. But she is a quick walker, I’d go now if I were you.” A smile that didn’t need the wink with it to get the point and Daniel finally caught on, nodding rapidly and giving him an awkward little wave, couple strands dislodged from the slicked hair as he took a couple backwards steps and turned for the sidewalk again. 

“Thanks, I’ll uh. See you around, Bucky!”

Bucky leaned back against the wall, kicking one foot out to cross over at the ankle and waved Sousa a little goodbye. 

He had no idea what that was about, or why Sousa seemed so worried about Bucky knowing he was following Carter outta the building, but. He was _for_ them socializing and whatnot, it wasn’t like he didn’t know how tough that could be in the workplace. Besides, Peg could take care of herself. If she didn’t want Sousa around, he was pretty sure she’d find a way to tell him. 

For now, Bucky’d wait it out, let them settle out all their complicated love drama. In the meantime he’d just wait here for Steve - who was taken forever by the way - and work out his own complicated...life drama. 

Another few minutes started ticking by slowly and Bucky sighed, glancing at the clock across the street, just about to go in there and ask Rose to patch him through or something when the door suddenly burst open again.

The instant flash of blonde had him straightening off the wall only wait, those shoulders were too narrow to be Steve’s. Jesus christ, everybody but the one he needed to see, right? The angled hat was familiar though… _oh_.

“Jack, hey!” Bucky called, pushing off the wall and starting for the man who’d suddenly stopped and turned his way, blue gaze catching on his from under the shadowed brim and spreading in a slow smile as it finally registered - to be fair, the brown leather jacket he’d stolen from Steve and the black slacks were a little different than the blue-green uniform Thompson was used to seeing him in.

He half-jogged the distance between them, falling into step at Thompson’s side, one hand shielding his eyes against the sun with his unfortunate lack of a sideways debonair hat. 

“Hey, I'm really sorry about that thing at the diner the other day, Steve's been weird as hell lately. No idea what’s gotten into him.” Two hands shoved in pockets and Jack’s lips pursed sympathetically. 

“No bother,” he waved aside, head tipping in the direction of the sidewalk in a silent offering for Bucky to walk with him. He _was_ gonna wait for Steve, but. Well, honestly, Steve was being an ass and Peg did say he was in a meeting, so. 

The moment’s hesitation barely flickered across his face before he nodded, falling into step beside Thompson as they started down the sidewalk together, cocking his head at the sharp-dressed agent's curious glance and accompanying words.

“So how _do_ you know Rogers? I mean, it’s not every day your favorite waiter’s gettin’ dragged off by a coworker.” There was a hint of a smile in there somewhere and the corner of Bucky’s mouth tipped up, debating just a moment to comment on the _favorite waiter_ part before he decided against it. 

“Rogers and I’ve known each other since we were young’uns terrorizing Brooklyn’s backstreets. And we’ve been livin’ together bout half as long.” 

“Really? That’s quite a bond.”

“Yeah…” Bucky trailed off, thinking over exactly how much of a _broken_ bond it’d been lately and the sour must’ve shown through on his face cause suddenly Jack was bumping his shoulder, shooting a kind smile under that shadowed brim. 

“Hey, it ever gets to be too much, you just gimme a call, we’ll go out for drinks sometime.” 

“Actually,” he paused, glancing over his shoulder just to check but the sidewalk they’d left behind was still empty and y’know what, he didn’t feel like goin’ home to that empty apartment and waitin’ around for Rogers to give him shit, so. 

Jack _was_ offering, and god knows he hadn’t been out for proper drinks since the Commandos. Besides, what could it hurt, gettin’ to know Steve’s coworkers a little better, right? 

“I’ve kinda had a lousy day, you free now?” 

 

 

The warm glow of golden hallway light was quite the difference from the usual crisp white-blue of Stark’s laboratories, but she had to say she was a bit appreciative of the new meeting environment. The likelihood of getting blown up was at least ten percent less outside of one of Stark’s fancy labs, especially considered how well he valued all of this fancy decor. 

And from the smell of it, fancy dining too. 

“Peggy!” Howard greeted, slightly blurred around the mouthful of - what was that, some kind of fish? - he was waving on a fork as she entered. 

“Howard. My, I can’t say I’ve ever seen you eat before, I would’ve remembered such a spectacle.” She raised both eyebrows at the line of plates on his end of the long, beautiful dark-oak table, each with fancy dressings and danishes to adorn the surprisingly small portions. 

Another fish-piece was stabbed in her direction as he tipped his head, thankfully swallowing his bite before he started rambling off again, sharp knife working away at some other fleshy looking creature. 

“Frankly, this is all due to Jarvis, there. Most times I’m forgetting to eat when I’m in my lab--”

“All times, sir,” Jarvis corrected, worried knit between his eyebrows and Peggy couldn’t help the small smile. 

“--and considering I’m there if I’m not with a… _friend_ , it’s either fine dining or no dining at the Stark residence.” Another bite popped between his talkative lips and Peggy stepped up to the chair Mr. Jarvis pulled out, offering him a nod of thanks as she sat and spoke before Stark could try to around his food again. 

“If you’ve been spending time in the lab, I would hope you’ve gotten some progress on the blood samples I so painstakingly collected for you?” 

“Mmm,” Howard hummed, offering a forkful in her direction she politely wrinkled her nose at to turn down. “S’far, found some similar substances and things…” swallow, “-but I don’t know if it’s just cause they were both in similar facilities, or if it’s the same person yet.” Two dabs with a napkin and the plate was slid aside in favor of a new one. “Still working on it. You sure you don’t want something to eat?” 

“I’m quite fine, thank you. What kind of substances have you found? It’s been over a year since James has been in a facility like that, wouldn’t you think--”

“Peg.” Howard sat down both napkin and fork - well then, look at him be serious for a moment - and pinned her with his most sincere scientist look. “I’m doing everything I can. If you really want all the boring details, I can give ‘em to you, but at least eat _something._ ”

“The plum pudding is quite good,” Jarvis offered from behind her and Peggy threw a mild glare over her shoulder. “Sincerely, Miss Carter, it is dinner time and unless you’re watching your figure…”

“My figure is just fine, thank you,” she bit curtly, reaching over for one of the many plates and sliding it her direction. The triumphant quirk Howard sent in Jarvis’ direction was about the least subtle thing ever and fine, she’d been played, but some of it did smell quite good and she hadn’t eaten since lunch. Let them think they had their victory if that made the boys happy. 

“Anyways, now that we’re eating - Jarvis, do join us - what can you tell me about those substances? You won’t be needing another sample, will you?” 

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” Howard glanced over as Peggy cut into the a slice of steak, knife flashing in the light and shook his head. “You sure are somethin’ else though. Last time I had dinner with a lady as pretty as you, Peg, we weren’t exactly talking scientific blood sampling.” 

“Thank you, Howard, for whatever compliment that was supposed to be. Now, the substances? Oh, and I got ahold of his medical report, and I have to say, it’s not looking good. Or, rather, unfortunately. Quite the opposite...”

 

Bucky hadn’t laughed this much in ages. 

 

The war changed a lot of things, but apparently it didn’t change Steve sitting around moodily in the apartment to wait for Bucky to get home. See, back when it was all gunfire and smoke and breathless, adrenaline-filled smiles across a battlefield, he’d hung on so goddamn tight to the idea that one day, they’d get to go home, that New York would take them back heroes and he wouldn’t be sick and they could help more people and he could look at his best friend without desperately trying to memorize his features one last time in case they didn’t make it outta one last firefight. 

But now, now everything was fucked and convoluted between them and Steve didn’t know how he was supposed to look at Bucky at all and this wasn’t the world he’d fought to come home to because what kinda world was one where he simultaneously couldn’t wait and also fucking dreaded the key turning in that front lock. 

Why was he so late? The diner had been closed for two hours now, and he was pretty sure Buck didn’t even have the closing shift. Was he just...not gonna come home? Leave Steve waiting up all night for him like those dates he wouldn't come home til the early hours of morning and--

The lock finally clicked on the doorknob, metal spinning across the room and Steve tried so goddamn hard not to let his heart race. 

The door swung open and Bucky froze in the doorway, eyes snapping right to where Steve was waiting, propped silently in the shadows on the couch. 

“Rogers,” he greeted, low, off handed and _fuck_ , Steve’s chest ached. Last names, Buck was pissed enough back now to start using last names and it was exactly what Steve wanted when he'd been pushing so hard away from those ~~dragging crystal eyes~~ \-- 

No, no, fuck, see this was exactly why he had to put distance between them, backpedal the fuck out until he figured all this out and he just couldn't deal with the extra stress on top of--

“Where were you?” Steve snapped back, a little sharper than he wanted but no, as much as it fucking sucked not to turn to Buck right now there were some fights he just couldn't drag him into and this was definitely fucking one of those. 

“With a friend,” he replied just as short and snart, narrowing in a bit of a glare as he hung his-- no, Steve’s -- jacket up on the hook by the door, hands fumbling just enough--

He’d been out drinking. But there wasn't a single damn lipstick mark left on him and the only way that was possible was if Buck hadn't been with a dame which meant the friend was a fella and normally that'd be easier, Buck always had a couple guys from the docks he hung out with only now, in this new city, the only friend Bucky’d made of that gender wasn't a fucking friend at all. 

What the hell kinda game was he _playing_? Steve couldn't let Bucky get swept in this, was doing everything he fucking could to prevent it but how was he supposed to when they _went out for drinks_ , how long was it until Jack told him--

No, no he wouldn't do that, he wouldn't risk incriminating himself too, would he, only Steve still didn't know if he'd kissed back or not it was such a fucking blur and and

“Stay away from Jack,” he blurted, standing now and he had no idea when that'd happened either but Bucky was looking at him with that sharp gaze that meant he was analyzing every single flicker across Steve's face which wasn't _fair_ he couldn't control that right now he needed--

“Why? Why, Steve, I don't understand what you could possibly have against hi--” 

“Just don't! Just don't talk to him, find some other drinking buddy, just. Just not _Jack Thompson._ ” There was this awful pleading tone in his voice now but Bucky just looked even more frustrated. 

“I don't get you.” 

“Buck, just--” 

“No. No, you don't get to decide my friends. Not for no reason, Steve. That's not fair.”

Bucky stared him down, gaze flashing pissy even in the dark shadows of their apartment and Steve couldn’t fucking _take_ that, all that logic and righteousness and it wasn’t fucking fair, he didn’t get to fucking pull that card on _him._

It took about a minute of full, vibrating fuming before Steve finally broke, huffing in despair and throwing up a hand in the face of all that stubborn, storming right the fuck outta the living room and leaving his stupidly tenacious best friend to make sure he got enough water to stave off hangover on his fuckin’ own. 

The door slammed and Bucky sighed, deflating. It took too long to drag the saddened gaze away, shuffling into the kitchen that wasn’t even destitute to match his insides anymore. 

He just _didn’t get it._

This was _Steve_. His Steve. What the fuck was wrong between them? 

The wood pieces clammered onto his feet when he opened the closet, a curse as he nearly spilled his waterglass bending to scoop them back up. He was gonna pretend he wasn’t a fucking mess and do something productive with his hands before he went and punched something, or worse, went and knocked on Rogers’ door. 

So that’s how he found himself sanding wood at two in the morning, scrubbing down sharp edges with his teeth clenched and wishing he could just sand down that impossibly stubborn blonde hard exterior, understand what the fuck was going on underneath all those shiny new muscles. If he could just wean those rough parts down, get underneath all that golden skin and get Steve to fuckin’ _talk_ to him. 

Okay, maybe that was sanded enough, he was gonna worry through the entire damn plank if he didn’t get his shit together. Carving, he could go back to carving the top parts and hey maybe that wasn’t the best idea drunk, but. He didn’t _feel_ drunk. Not anymore, anyways, and maybe he’d never sobered up that fast but Steve’d never been this mad at his for this _long_ before and. 

Bucky tapped the tip of his blade against his lips, debating between adding onto the pattern he had going now or maybe he should just carve something a little more fuckin’ obvious in that fancy wood. Yeah, he knew he was being dramatic, but maybe the doors would stop slamming if he carved out _I’m still fucking here you idiot_ in really big letters across the back. Or maybe a bit more simple, Fuck You. 

A deep sigh and Bucky’s thumb slid along the blade, slowly clicking it back into its metal sheath. There was no point, he could carve it into his damn bloody arm and Steve’d still never get it. 

~~Besides, it just might heal before Steve saw it anyways.~~

 

When she finally made it across the room from tying her night robe tight enough, she wasn't sure what exactly she was expecting, but with a knock like that she shouldn't’ve been surprised when Angie burst into her room, bouncing hair swishing past with this sudden sweep of sweet, then those dramatic legs were folding and Angie plopped right down on her bed. 

She _really_ didn’t have time for this right now, she was still analyzing those chemical compounds Stark gave her and she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling from earlier that she’d been followed on the way to Howard’s and either she was getting more paranoid or this was consuming her life, but how could it not, this was _Bucky_ and as much as she’d love to socialize--

“My life is over,” Angie announced and Peggy shut the door, turning with a sympathetic eyebrow raise. One delicate hand waved in the air, dramatics spinning right on, “The holidays are here and my ma just _begged_ me to go back home for Thanksgivin’ and one of my lil’ cousins just got engaged, I can’t _not_ go but it’s going to be _awful_.”

Peggy sucked in a breath. She supposed she could spare fifteen minutes, it was only fair with all the time Angie sacrificed for her and the break might give her fresh eyes to go over those papers again. Correlations and chemicals and metabolisms and. Right, Angie, her awful Thanksgiving.

“Why will it be awful? That sounds quite nice.” She propped carefully on the bedspread beside Angie, leaving a bit of space between them only Ang just bounced a little and rearranged her legs to tip Peggy closer. 

“It’s not that I don’t wanna see my family, cause I do, but they don’t wanna see me! At least, not like _this_ anyways.” 

Peggy furrowed her eyebrows, taking a glance down Angie’s vague wave at herself. She looked perfectly presentable, objectively speaking and all. 

“What could possibly be wrong with the way you look?”

“No, not the way I _look_ , the way I _am_. I’m single! Not engaged, not even tied to a _boyfriend._ My ma’s always goin’ on about how the next time she sees me she’s expecting me to bring home some boy, some decorated soldier who just _fell in love_ with the nobody girl at the diner.”

“You’re not a nobody.” The hard furrow between Angie’s pretty eyes softened a little as Peggy reached over, paused a moment before deciding this was most definitely one of those occasions and. Wrapped her fingers around one of Angie’s soft pretty hands. 

Angie looked down at their overlapping skin, sighing softly as some of the dramatic energy drained. “Doesn’t stop my family from waitin’ on me to have a husband.”

“I do so wish I could help.” Gentle squeeze and those pretty teal eyes flicked back up to hers. Peggy held the gaze, voice low and sincere as she promised something she wished she could just nail inside of every poor woman’s head she saw. “You don't need a husband to validate you.”

“Aw, English.” A soft thumb traced over the back of her hand and Peggy inhaled quietly, she just wasn’t used to people touching her hands, was all. “I just wish I had words like yours. Or heck, if only I had you around to fend off all those pesky questions. I bet my ma wouldn't even _care_ I didn’t have a ring if I brought home somebody great as you, Peg.”

“Well,” Peggy gave her a tight smile, forcing herself to look away from the painted nails draped over her own. “On the bright side, you do have family to go home to.” 

“You not headed to see yours?” Cocked pretty head, curls bouncing and Peggy withdrew her hand slowly, smoothing down a crease in her skirt as those bright eyes kept looking at her so intensely.

“Ah….no. No, I figured I'd get some work done, files for the phone company--”

“Oh _Peg!_ That's just awful, you can't spend Thanksgiving by yourself! You should come with me!” The idea came out as just this cheery thing, so simple and easy but Peggy couldn’t help but shake her head softly because of course it was a sweet offer, but-- 

“Really. Really, _oh,_ wouldn’t that just be lovely? We'd have such a great time! My granny would just love you. Oh, English, _please_ say you'll come.” 

“I don't want to intrude.” 

“Oh you won't be!”

Peggy’s tight smile was starting to melt a little because as much as Angie was entirely enthused about this, it really wasn’t practical, one didn’t just bring home their _friend_ when a family was expecting a fiancé. 

“I'm not exactly a husband to show off,” she started slowly, and the last thing she’d expected was for Angie to launch herself across the small space between them, thin ruffled arms wrapping around Peggy’s shoulders while she jolted a little and stared over the pink shoulder in surprise. 

“No, you're better,” Angie declared vehemently, squeezing her tighter and Peggy blinked a few times, slowly bringing her arms up to wrap tentatively around Angie’s back too. She had no idea what could possibly be better about a gal you knew than a man you were to spend the rest of your life with, but she wasn’t planning on doing anything for Thanksgiving and if Angie wanted her to come _this_ badly? She shouldn’t just turn her down. 

Angie was still squeezed around her and her hair smelled so lovely, not coying like some of those flower perfumes, just sweet, a little like powdered sugar and Peggy couldn’t help the smile starting to curl on her face. 

Okay, what would it hurt? A few days off wouldn’t ruin her work with Howard, and it _would_ be nice to have a good homecooked meal with good company. 

A deep sigh and Peggy finally squeezed Angie back a little, shoulders feeling so small under her palms that hadn’t hugged much of anybody but Steve, and. That was the final push, because their moral compasses had always been aligned and frankly, what would Steve do?

“Alright. Alright, I'll come.” 

The little high-pitched noise Angie made at that was even more excited than Peggy knew she could be, practically bouncing off the bed, bounding for the door with her curls swinging wild. 

“Oh, I’ll go call my ma _right now_. She’ll be so delighted!” 

Peggy shook her head but she didn’t stop smiling as she reached the door, opening it up for Angie who was practically vibrating on her tiptoes. 

“Oh English, we’re gonna have such a good time!” 

Peggy opened her mouth to reply, or maybe tell Angie to stop bouncing or she’d go right through the floorboards--

Then there was a pair of lips on her cheek, a quiet puckered sound, and Angie was bounding into the hallway, waving one slender hand over her shoulder and calling brightly,

“Thanks again, Peg! You are such a life saver!!” 

Then she was off, practically running down the hallway, skirt lifted with both hands, and Peggy watched her round the corner before she realized her mouth was still open. 

A hand shot to her cheek, where Angie’d just...kissed? Her cheek? 

Of course, it wasn’t still warm, and it was late enough at night it probably hadn’t left a mark but--

What if it _had_. The door closed so quickly her heart was pounding mission-style, quick lock over the wood and she most definitely didn’t run to her vanity, bending over to peer in the mirror.

No lipstick mark. Most of the color was worn off by now, it was late, and what did she care anyways? Just. More makeup to wash off her face, which she definitely didn’t need, she should be headed to bed, there were things that had to be done and cases that had to be solved and people that had to be saved--

Her palm somehow found her cheek again and if she smiled a little too much as she readied herself for bed, that was most _definitely_ not her fault at all. 

 

 

As if everything wasn't bad enough. 

Even mornings were fights now. 

“Anybody bothering you at the diner?” Steve asked, shooting Bucky this _look_ under those long eyelashes from his side of the table. The screech of his chair was just loud enough to make Steve flinch and Bucky didn’t even pause, scooping up his plate and heading for the kitchen. 

“There’s been some rude comments, but it’s not a big deal. I’m handling it.” Plate slammed a little hard in the sink and Steve’s knife clicked on his plate as he sat it down, clank echoing around the apartment like everything they weren’t saying. 

“I sure hope so.” A pause and Bucky shut off the faucet, picking up the towel to dry, glaring at Steve’s spine as those shoulders shifted, set down his water glass. “Y’know ignoring it isn’t handling.” 

“Everything’s been great,” he replied dryly, setting the plate back in the cabinet and starting for the table, reaching over Steve’s stupid shoulder to clear his plate too, only he barely lifted an edge before Steve’s fingers closed around his arm, grabbing him to a sudden halt, blue eyes snapping up accusingly. 

“Then what’s this?” Steve bit and Bucky looked down, right past where Steve’s hand was squeezing his arm and there were...bruises on his wrist. 

He hadn’t even noticed. 

“I don’t know.” The surprise in his voice was entirely genuine, he couldn’t remember getting those for the life of him and...if they were from the diner, which he was pretty sure they weren’t, wouldn’t they be gone by now? 

But see, Steve didn’t have that logic because he hadn’t exactly confessed whatever the fuck was happening to his weird body, especially when Steve could do nothing but stare at him abhorred.

“You don’t know,” he mocked and Bucky set the plate down, eyebrows furrowed as he glanced between the accusing blue and the strange purpling marks on his skin. 

“No, I don’t.” 

A disgusted huff and Steve threw Bucky’s wrist back at him, shoving up from the table and shaking every dish left on it, turning on his heel so sharp and fast Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if the motherfucker followed up with a salute. 

But no, those broad shoulders didn’t so much as pause, fucking stalking out of the dining room like _Bucky_ was somehow the fucked up one and he’d never really understood what Steve’d meant by seeing red until right fucking now.

“Oh, like you didn’t come in here last week with _your face busted in_ and wouldn’t even let me _touch you!!_ ”

Steve whirled around, both arms spread and stupid mouth shouting right the fuck back at him. 

“Why do you need to _touch_ me?!?” Slap across the face and Bucky just stared, stunned, skin smarting red and Steve never knew when to stop throwing punches. “I don’t _need you_ to fucking _fix me_!!”

“ _Fuck_ you.”

The door slammed and Bucky’s chest was heaving, bruised wrist throbbing now but he barely registered it with the vacuum sucking the life outta him where his heart used to be.

 

Things really weren’t good. 

 

The banging on the door was the only thing that drew him outta his room, not bothering to throw on a jacket over his undershirt, a pair of loose pajama pants as he ran a tired hand through already-rucked hair and peered through the peephole. 

Angie? Why was Angie here?

Steve ran a hand over his face and flipped the lock, mouth already open to apologize for the state of disheveled, but he didn’t get the chance before Martinelli came bursting into the room. 

“USA! You look...awful, frankly. Worse than even Bucky, I’d say. Speakin’ a which, where’s Brooklyn?” Cheery as ever, sweeping in past him with a slightly concerned twist of pity for his hair, clutch making a ridiculously loud rattle as she swung it onto the kitchen counter. 

“Bucky?” Steve finally managed, closing the door behind her. To be fair, it was his first time out of bed all day. “He’s not here.” 

“Really?” Angie furrowed her eyebrows, one hand propping on her hip. “Well, I’ll be the darndest. He left the diner bout an hour ago.” 

Pursed lips as she paused, thought it over and finally waved Steve closer with a lax hand, pulling out two chairs from the table. Okay, well, she apparently wasn’t that miffed about the you look awful thing, propping down and crossing her legs while she waited for him to sit. 

A deep sigh and Steve sunk down next to her, rolling his head on his shoulders and trying not to look too pitiful under the wild mess of blonde hair.

“He gone often?” Angie tutted sympathetically and Steve hated being the Broken One but he couldn’t help pouting when everything sucked so fucking much lately. 

“...lately.”

“Hm. Might’ve gone out for drinks with that new friend of his.” One hand waving as she spoke, all chipper contemplation and Steve _really_ was hoping she wasn't gonna say what the pit in his stomach was warning. “Jack something or other?” 

And there it was, punch to the gut. He somehow manages not to keel over and Martinelli didn't even notice, kept right on rambling. 

“It's good to see Brooklyn making friends. They're real close now I think. Calls him Brook, short for Brooklyn.” Steve tried to unclench his fists, but he couldn’t even make his grit teeth release. “He gave Bucky’s nickname a nickname. Isn't that just the cutest--”

“That’s _my thing_.” It broke outta him so fast he couldn't shut his mouth before Angie’s eyes went wide, snap crack hiss, “ _Mine_.”

No. No, this couldn't be happening. 

First Jack tried to destroy his life at work and then the fucking _kiss_ in the fucking _alley_ and now he was taking away the only thing Steve had left, the only thing that mattered so fucking much Steve could lose anything, anything except for Buck and how was he supposed to even fight back if Bucky wouldn't even listen to him and how long before Jack did more than steal nicknames or best friends, how long until he told Bucky exactly what Steve’d done--

A delicate hand landed on his arm and Steve jolted, staring down wide eyed at Angie’s touch. 

“Are you alright?” 

“I’m _fine_. Fuck.” Angie's eyes went even wider and Steve’s hand drew back quickly, palming his forehead and trying to get himself to breathe, eyes closed and. “Sorry. Sorry, Angie, really. I--”

The key turned in the door. 

He heard it before Angie did, and his words froze in his throat the moment his heart froze in his chest. 

The door shouldered open and of course, Bucky just strolled right the fuck in. 

And froze a foot from the doorway, crinkled in confusion as he saw Angie first, then crystal eyes turned on Steve and all the confusion dropped straight for that awful blank mask and. 

Steve's gaze cut down, went straight for Bucky’s skin, like there would somehow be some trace of this morning, of Jack’s stupid game, of everything he was stealing, some trace of the bruises round those wrists but he couldn't see a damn thing from here and Steve couldn't help but feel so goddamn cut out, ostracized and if Bucky really was getting harassed Steve had no idea what to do, Bucky wouldn't tell him anything and he still couldn't shake what the first assholes had said, about Bucky's kind’a pretty, about Bucky's mouth --

Queer, they'd called him queer, called them both queer and Steve had done such awful things with his mouth now. 

He couldn't take this. 

The fists at his sides weren't doing anything to calm his heart but he managed to lean over, apologize rapidly under his breath to Angie and he was shoving up from the chair, started straight for his bedroom because he has no idea how he was supposed to be around Bucky right now and Buck wasn't making it any easier. 

“Oh my,” blinked dramatically behind him and Steve was almost at his door by the time Angie leaned over and raised her voice at his retreating back, tone obvious as hell, 

“You two excited for your trip tomorrow?” 

“Elated,” Steve grit, then his bedroom door was slamming closed and Bucky blinked owlishly, turning wide eyes at their sighing guest. 

“What's his problem?” 

“A lot more than nicknames, I'd bet,” she mused, a moment's pause before she hopped outta her chair, smile turning bright on him as both hands clasped together. “Anyways, you're gonna be gone for a weekend, I figured we oughta practice while we still can.” 

“You're on,” Bucky grinned, then he was hanging his jacket up by the door while Angie danced her way across the living room to go turn on the record player.

 

A strong arm wrapped round her waist and Bucky spun her out in step, their hands catching as her feet skipped, pulled back round and out in a Lindy just slow enough to keep gossiping, and considering Bucky was in a surprisingly good mood, she might as well share the news that had her in an even better one. 

“You wanna hear my good news?”

“Don’t I always?” Teasing tip of his head and Bucky had that charmer half-smile on, the one that made it most definitely his fault most his tips were kisses. “Especially if it means something along the lines of us never having to perform this dance.”

“Oh shut up, Brooklyn, you know you love dancing.” 

A conceding shrug as their shoulders lined up, hands and arms crossed over twin kicking feet. “Well? What is it then?”

“It just so happens,” kick spin and they were face to face again, eyes twinkling as she gave him an eyebrow-raised smile of her own, lifting her chin just a little because the Great Bucky Barnes wasn’t the only one who’d been in the cheek-kissing business lately. “...I have a guest coming home with me for the holiday. “

“Oh? And who's the lucky fella? You do know if he's anything like all the guys I know I'll have to beat ‘im to a pulp.”

“Actually, I dare say you may be the one losing that fight.” The surprise flitting over those pretty features was absolutely worth the pause, then Angie couldn’t take it anymore and blurted out, quick and happy as she’d been at the _yes_. “It ain't a fella. It's Peggy.”

The cupid’s bow mouth popped open, surprise shifting instantly into amazement and a bright curve of congratulations. 

“Carter’s goin’ to Thanksgiving with you? Wow, Ang. That's great!” A spin in and Bucky dipped her quick, arm strong under the small of her back, “You are one lucky gal.” 

“Don’t I know it,” she beamed, crossing at the ankles as he spun her back up and out, still dreaming on her feet. “It’s like every wish I’ve ever had is comin’ true. Doesn’t even feel _real_. But how bout you?”

“Hm, what about me?”

“Y’know, you and Steve.” 

Bucky froze so fast she collided right into his shoulder, bouncing off in surprise and rubbing her own, by goodness he had a strong bone structure. 

“ _What?_ ”

The alarm on his face was worse than she’d seen yet, which was sayin’ a lot for how everything’d been in the past week and maybe he wasn’t in such a good’a mood as he was pretending, if Steve’s name stopped him cold that damn fast. 

“Y’know, your trip. Are you two gonna survive your Thanksgiving?” Something tight released behind those crystal eyes and maybe _that_ was about more than names too. 

“Oh. Oh, that.” Bucky took her hand again, pulling her distractedly into a simple sidestep. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll be fine. Spent a couple years in front’a camera, we’ll both plaster on smiles and everything will ride over til we get back here anyways.”

Angie made a sad noise and Bucky smiled, too wide, too bright, and the only footage she’d seen of them, in that movie theatre Steve and Bucky’d ran out of, those smiles were a lot more real than the one he was giving her now. 

“‘Sides. What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

The train ride was entirely silent. 

The taxi ride even moreso. 

And just like he'd expected, the moment they both stepped onto the walkway up to Gabe’s door, Steve plastered on the same smile he wore to all those Captain America photoshoots, subconsciously smoothing his carefully gelled hair one more time as Bucky sighed and rang the doorbell. 

A stampede of colliding and skidding feet, bright bursts of laughter from within and it wasn't hard to morph the soft smile into a big, not-quite-so-genuine one because dammit, this could be one of the greatest holidays of his life if he and Steve weren't goddamned fighting. 

Selfish bastard. 

But he shoved all that aside, perfect Brooklyn Barnes grin as the wooden door flew open from within, a pile of shouts and beaming boys. 

“Sarge and Cap!!” Monty shoved onto the porch to tackle Bucky in a hug and Dugan’s belly laugh echoed as he clapped Steve on the shoulder, pulled him into a similar hug and corralled everyone inside, more shoves and clapping backs in the foyer, Dernier’s high laugh as he spread his arms out the same way he did after he blew up something cool and Bucky shook his head, scooping the little Frenchmen up in a hug too. 

After a full round of hugs for everyone and a rough kiss to the cheek from Gabe’s mom things settled down enough for actual conversation, the first of which was serious heckling directed at Bucky for not showing up at the last mission. 

“Rogers was tellin’ us you’re some kinda diner boy now, Barnes?” 

“Hey, it's a living,” he offered, jostling a bit as Morita clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Speakin’a which, how's it been livin’ back in Brooklyn you two?” 

“Actually, we’re not in Brooklyn,” Bucky started, forcing himself to keep a smile tucked in one corner of his mouth, same time Steve plastered another We Want You smile with,

“You know, same old same old.” 

It was Monty’s smile who’s faltered first. Then Gabe glanced at Jacques, both their gazes cutting between Steve and Bucky. 

“You two alright?” Morita asked slowly, clapping his other hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve’s expression of pure innocence was actually pretty damn great. Couldda fooled nearly anybody. 

“Yeah, we’re great, aren't we, Buck?”

“Super,” he agreed, turning to Dum Dum just in time to look down in confusion at the hand closing around his arm. “Wh--”

They'd been here for all of three seconds before the Commandos took them both by the arms, careful of Bucky’s old war injury, and lead them protesting weakly outta the foyer. 

Then protesting much more heartily as their team exchanged knowing glances and shoved them both into the tiny space and. 

Subsequently locked them in a closet together. 

The door clicked shut with a loud external click and Bucky cursed, banging on the wood with the last touch of amusement he had left as he shouted through the keyhole. 

“Okay, haha, funny. Let us out now, we get the point.”

A couple of muted laughs and a solemn sigh from the outside, then Falsworth’s voice filtered through the little space in the door. 

“You two get’a come out when you stop the pett’y bickereen. It's the holidays!”

“We wouldda done this during the war, only closets were a bit in short supply,” Morita added, shoving Falsworth aside. “Rogers, Barnes, you two are just about the closest outta anybody I know, we’re not lettin’ you fight this whole time.” 

“We’re your officers!” Bucky shouted back and Falsworth snickered. 

“Higher ranking than you.”

“Not than me,” Steve finally piped up, stepping up to the door. Their shoulders brushed and Bucky twitched, taking a step to the side and efficiently running into a gigantic fluffy coat. 

“Listen, we’re all adults. There's no reason we can't--”

“Captain, it's touching and all but. You can't report us to anybody now. Just…talk with Barnes, we’ll be back in an hour and you can both kick our asses then, if you're not thanking us. Which I'm betting on both, but.”

“Work out your shit, you two!” Dugan shouted, then the shuffling feet started to get quieter and quieter and Bucky cursed, pressing his ear to the door. 

“C'mon, this isn't funny!” Steve shouted, banging on the door one more time. 

“S’no use,” Bucky pointed out, taking a step back and at least avoiding the coat this time. His eyesight was finally starting to adjust to the dim light from under the door and the keyhole, so the exasperated look on Steve’s face wasn't lost on him now. 

It was the first thing he'd said directly to Steve since...their fight, actually. 

He leaned a shoulder against the wall and waited to see if Rogers was gonna say anything back. If they were in here for an hour, Bucky had no doubts Stevie could be stubborn enough to be silent that _entire_ time. 

But see, Bucky was pretty for the idea of making up. The closet wasn't an ideal choice, but he hadn't even been the one to start this fight and frankly, he'd like for it to be over as soon as possible. 

It sucked fighting with Steve. 

It also sucked how hell the Commandos knew them. Yeah, they'd all lived in each other's pockets for a couple years, but still. 

“They caught on faster than I thought,” Bucky offered, watching from his post by the door as Steve slid down the opposite wall, propping up both his feet and wrapping an arm over the top of his knees, head knocking back against the wall. 

And finally, his eyes flicked over to Bucky’s in the darkness. One eyebrow lifted, the paradigm of disapproval, disinterest, sass, _something._

Something that also sucked. 

“Look, Steve, I don't know what I did--”

An aggravated sigh and Steve’s head rolled on the wall, staring at the shine of light from the keyhole.

“We don't have to do this.” 

“What, fight? Good, glad you agree.”

“No, talk about everything just cause we're in here. We’ve sat in silence a lot longer than an hour.”

“Yeah, Steve, I know,” Bucky shouldered off the wall, taking a step closer and sinking to a crouch, forcing Steve to look at him with that pouty petulance. “If I remember correctly, it's been a little over a week and half now. Why the hell are we fighting?” 

“We’re not,” Steve sighed and Bucky plopped down, scooting even closer as he crossed his legs Indian style. 

“Yeah, we fuckin’ are. You don't even talk to me anymore.”

Another sigh, shake of his head as a piece of pretty blonde dislodged, arching over Steve’s forehead as he stared down at his hands. 

“Buck--”

“Don't ‘Buck’ me. What the fuck happened? Something happened, something's changed, and it just.” The frustrated noise was the only thing keeping him from turning to more embarrassing noises that definitely had nothing to do with tearing up. 

They weren't like that, all gooey and whatnot. 

Only he'd just spent so much of his life terrified of losing Steve to his cough, then to a stray bullet and now that he finally had Steve in his life without the worry they weren't even talking and if Bucky lost his best friend to a _fight_ when he'd spent so long afraid to lose him in such worse ways--

“I miss you, pal,” Bucky finally broke, voice all fucked up and he quickly scrubbed a hand over his face because it might be dark but he didn't wanna risk it just in case. 

When he finally risked a glance back at Steve, the dark blues were staring at him. 

“Aw, Buck.” Steve sounded all soft now and Bucky kinda hated himself for getting all blubbery like that but if it got Steve to see fucking sense, he'd cry like a girl and wear a goddamned girdle. 

“I'm…I'm sorry for everything lately. You don't deserve that.” Steve looked away again, swallowing tight and the guilt on his face made Bucky feel even worse but it also kinda tightened his chest with something akin to hope. 

“You're right, I don't,” Bucky pointed out and that almost curved a smile on Steve’s face. 

“It's been a rough adjustment and I think I...need some space.” Steve glanced up with that soft sad look, all tiny and small and telling Buck he didn't need his help after his mom died all over again only for some reason, this punch felt a hell of a lot harder against his chest. 

“Not asking you to move out or anything drastic, but I…”

Holy fucking shit. That'd never even crossed his mind, why the fuc-- 

Was it crossing Steve’s? _Why_?

“I...I've got a lot of questions, about myself and my life and sometimes I feel like I'll never know the answers when you're right there, answering everything for me.”

Was he….he was being fucking serious right now. 

“You are way too young for a midlife crisis,” Bucky tried, mainly because saying what he really felt was probably gonna make those aforementioned tears surface. 

“C'mon, Buck, I'm bein’ serious. It's not that I don't want you around, ‘cause I do, it's just. Maybe. Have you ever thought that maybe we’re just…a little _too_ close?” Steve winced as he said it, looking at Buck all small and sheepishly and all the possibility of tears went out the window in the snap of a heartbeat. 

Too close? 

“What exactly are you saying?” He kept the words as slow and unpanicked as possible, only he hadn't felt this panicked since the last time Steve came jumping outta some burning tank. 

Steve thought they were too close. Too close, did that mean--

Did Steve--

Was he implying…?

“It's complicated,” Steve mumbled and Bucky was probably still gaping like a fish. 

“Steve,” he started, slowly, doing everything he could not to leap across the space between them and strangle an answer out of that stubborn throat. “What do you mean, _too close_?”

The thirty seconds it took Steve to gather his words and answer were the longest single thirty seconds of his entire goddamned life. 

“Bucky, even siblings get sick of each other after awhile. Not saying I'm sick of you, ‘cause I'm really not,” Steve rushed and Bucky’s heart wasn't pounding loud enough to make him dead anymore because Steve had said siblings instead of couples which was good, fuck that was good but it was also terrible because yeah, 

They were brothers in arms, only Steve was getting sick of him??

“I just think maybe some time settling into our separate lives is a good idea.”

He blinked at the harsh light coming through the keyhole. 

What the fuck. 

Then a hand touched his foot and Bucky nearly jumped outta his skin, looking over at Steve with eyes the size of saucers. 

“You're still my best friend, Buck,” he swore low and serious and the wave of emotions he'd had to take in the last five minutes was enough to knock anyone flat but that didn't make the tears pooling behind his eyes any easier. 

“Sorry, I've gotta,” Bucky breathed, shoving to his feet and backing the two steps to the door, apologizing to Gabe’s mom in his head before sucking in a breath and turning the doorknob hard, snapping the lock and shoving the door open in one motion. 

A chorus of protests and shouts came up from living room but before any of the boys could skid around the corner, Bucky was already ducking into the washroom and closing the door shut solid behind him, trying to breathe. 

Dear god. 

Steve didn't want Bucky in his life anymore. 

Steve didn't want Bucky in his life anymore. 

He had no idea what the hell he was gonna do. 

 

“Tell us, Miss Carter. Where was it you said you worked again?” Angie’s mother looked up from spooning mashed potatoes onto plates, giving her that same cautious, not-quite-there smile. 

“Peg works at the phone company,” Angie burst in, giving her a bright smile from across the table, curls bouncing under the dark green bow in her hair. “She comes into the diner quite a bit, and she lives right down the hall from me in the Griffith!”

“Oh, the Griffith, that is such a lovely place. I couldn’t be happier for my girl, than livin’ in a place like that.” Mr. Martinelli pinned Peggy with a look and she forced the prettiest smile she could. 

“It is quite a...traditional place, I must say the security is. Fantastic.” She couldn’t tell if eyebrow arched on Ms. Martinelli’s face was over her reply or the accent, because she’d mentioned London about nine times since she’d gotten here. But despite the initial surprise, they did seem to be warming up to her at least a little. 

“Security?”

“Our landlady,” Peggy piped, as cheerfully as possible and coming across quite that way when Angie replied with the exact same thing, in tandem and ridiculously bright. 

Then that smile was tilting her way with all the implications of _our Landlady Miriam Fry_ , one eyebrow arching as a heeled shoe tapped hers under the table. 

Security was the kind word for it. But it did mean she got to live down the hall from Angie, and so far it hadn’t interfered with work, so. It was worth it. 

And the pestering questions as Angie’s family slowly opened up to her were worth it too, for how much brighter and quicker those smiles were coming from Angie’s side of the table.

“Did you work for the phone company during the war?”

“Well--” No, but she had a good answer for that one. Code-breaking was a little too close to the truth, but code-translator for the phone company, that transferred quite well. 

“And what made you chose to America?”

“Actually,” she still wasn’t quite sure about that one, but that the SSR was here, and Steve was here, and New York had become a home to her in the months she’d been there, she could hardly imagine going back to England now. Especially with the friends and family she’d made here.

Even Angie’s mother and grandmother - the most disappointed her guest wasn’t a man to marry - started to seem genuinely interested, and by the time the second basket of table rolls were being passed around, everyone was laughing and the candlelight on the table didn’t compare the slightest to the warmth in her chest. 

This trip was a wonderful, wonderful idea. 

 

 

This trip was the worst idea they’d had in a long time. Bucky wasn’t sure how he was gonna make himself leave the hall washroom, let alone sit across from Steve at a foreign table with all the faces that knew him best and lie right through the way his chest was caving in, hands shaking as they gripped the porcelain sink so tight it just might shatter the way his heart already had. 

A rap on the bathroom door and he jumped half a foot, wiping a hand over his forehead and taking the step sideways to lean his temple weakly on the door, tell whoever it was on the other side to just leave him alone, he just needed five more minutes, five more years to get a grip on himself but Steve _didn’t want Bucky in his life anymore_ and--

“Sarge? It’s Montgomery. Can we talk?” 

Well, of all people to talk to, he could probably handle Monty and he didn’t wanna be rude to Ms. Jones and her incredible hospitality for having them but he couldn’t face Steve right now, so better to talk it through with someone on his team who wasn’t Steve, maybe he could get a fuckin’ grip.

Except when he turned the knob to open the door, it was exactly the one person who he couldn’t talk to right now that slipped inside before he could stop him, and that person most definitely Not Falsworth. 

“I’m sorry, I just. Have to fix this,” Steve started, closing the door behind him and barring the way in front of it, although there wasn’t much space in the washroom for him to stand anywhere beside right there anyways and Bucky could not _believe_ that asshole _faked a British accent_ and called him _Sarge_ just to get in here. 

What the fuck. 

~~There was also the offense of him falling for it when he should be recognized Steve's shoddy accent voice but he was stressed, cut him a fucking break.~~

A single moment’s hesitation and Bucky started forward, reaching around Steve for the doorknob and he slid right in front of it, both hands coming up to block Bucky and he wasn’t gonna fucking do this. 

“I can still go through you if I have to,” Bucky warned, low and serious, barely able to keep his eyes on Steve’s face for more than a few seconds, fuck that stupid soft expression, the passive hands held up to stop Bucky for once, instead of curled in fists like they’d always been. “Just ‘cause you're big and can fend for yourself doesn't mean I'm weak, now.”

“Buck, that's just the thing. I know you're not, you've always been stronger than me.” Quiet pleading and Steve sounded so innocent and honest and it took everything in him to just roll his eyes and _pshaw_ instead of punching that stupid face. 

“Bucky, c’mon. You've been through a hell of a lot more than me. At least I asked for all the needles they stuck in me.” 

“Really?” It was a hell of alot easier to look at Steve now that he was glaring at him. “You're gonna give me the P.O.W speech right now? On top of _everything_?”

He liked it a hell of a lot better when everyone pretended that little detail of his life hadn’t happened. He also liked it a hell of a lot better when people didn’t corner him in small spaces and not let him out and _interrogated him_ but apparently Steve didn’t know anything about him anymore. 

“Jeez, _see_ , this is why you're the one who's supposed to do the talking! I just fuck everything up.” A stressed hand ran over blonde, smoothing it back into its curve as he sucked in a deep breath and Christ, he knew Steve was a big guy now but there was a difference between knowing it and having to share a tiny washroom with all that packed muscle. Which he wasn’t thinking about. 

Fuck Steve Rogers, that’s what.

“No, Buck, what I'm saying is. You’re _strong_. You've never really needed me, not even when we were kids. And I just thought maybe you'd want some space now that--” 

“Now that you don't need me either?” He replied dryly and all the color in Steve’s cheeks drained right outta him. 

“Jesus Christ, _no_! That's not. Fuck. This is harder than I thought. The point is, my life is all kinds’a fucked up right now--”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn't be kicking me out,” Bucky pointed out and Steve didn’t look at him, kept right on barreling on with that stubborn head of his. 

“--so I don't want to burden you and make your life fucked up too!”

Bucky blinked. 

Oh. 

Oh, fucking bastard. 

All the air punched outta him in one go and Bucky deflated, both hands catching on the sink behind him. God, he’d never been so fuckin’ relieved in his life. 

It was this fight. He knew this fight. By god, he could do _this_ fight. 

Hell, half of the past two weeks was just explained in those two words that suddenly triggered back a couple dozen others. _Burden you._ It explained why Steve didn't wanna talk about it, why he was pullin’ that “too close” card, why he didn’t want Bucky patching him up, all of it. 

Well. It didn't explain why Steve came home with bruises on his face, or what exactly it was that was making his life so fucked up right now he’d almost kicked Bucky out of it, but Jesus Christ they were finally gettin’ somewhere. 

“Bucky…?”

Steve was looking at him all concerned but this was the goddamn best he’d felt in a month. Bucky took a deep breath, pushing up from the sink to catch those pretty blue eyes on his and say the same thing he’d been saying his whole life to that sweet, stupid stubborn head that just wouldn’t let it sink in. 

“Steven Grant Rogers, how many times have we had this fight? I’ve told you a dozen times. And I keep tellin’ you, at least twice a year, like clockwork, and I s’pose it’s been awhile since the last time so it’s just about due. Only I know you can hear me now, you punk, with your perfect ears and whatnot, so listen the fuck up. You think you're a burden _now_? You're half - hell, a quarter - of the work you used to be, while bein’ twice the size. Which means I can make you do _real_ housework instead of shoe-shining and takin’ out the trash.” 

Bucky leaned closer and clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder, mouth quirked up in a lightly teasing sidesmile because he never got sick of arguing domestic housework with his best friend, but the one thing he was even less sick of than that was that stupid worrier of a best friend. 

“You're not a burden, Steve. Believe me, pal.” His hand slid up to Steve’s collarbone, shaking him lightly and lookin’ up the few inches between their new heights now. “You're not a burden at all.” 

“Bucky, I just,” Steve started, eyebrows knit and mouth still pursed in worry and Bucky already knew what he was gonna say. 

“Shhhh. None of that.” His free hand pressed a very-serious pointer finger over Steve’s lips, mouth damp under his touch but Bucky was most definitely not thinking about that, or anything about Steve’s mouth, even if it was so soft and plush under the press of his finger but jeez. There was a point to this. 

Bucky swallowed, smile curling up on both sides again as he lifted his gaze up again, promised straight from the bottom of his newly-stitched-back heart. “You're not getting rid of me that easy, kid.” 

“I didn' try’n get rid of you,” Steve protested helplessly, mumbling around his finger, lips shifting under his touch and those big blue eyes were wide, round, makin’ him look about five years younger and Bucky narrowed into a fake-glare, leaning close to that pretty, surprised face to analyze the flickers behind all that blue. 

“Uh huh. Yeah, you try a stunt like that again and I’ll kick your ass, no questions asked.” Satisfied Steve heard him loud and clear, Bucky took a step back, hand lifting off Steve’s mouth and it took a couple seconds for the kid to catch up, suck in a breath Bucky hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

“The fuck were you thinkin’? Shouldda suspected. I mean, with you, it's always this same goddamn thing,” Bucky mused to himself and Steve made a face, half-annoyance and half this weird caught-out thing and Bucky squinted again, studying Steve over one more time from here. 

“...even if it weren't, you know I can listen to anything, right?” 

“Yeah,” Steve said weakly, the lamest, smallest, fakest smile he’d ever seen as he offered a quiet, “Sure, Buck.” 

“Sure Buck? All I get’s a _sure Buck_?” It was teasing but whatever was bothering Rogers enough to make him think Bucky’d be better off without him, it had to be bad. And just cause he wasn’t pressin’ it now didn’t mean he wasn’t gonna damn well find out. 

“Okay. Fine,” Steve conceded, and there was a crack of a real smile somewhere in there. “I was bein’ stupid. It’s...I don’t want you gone. So, uh. Thank you, Bucky.” 

“You're welcome, Stevie.” Just the tiniest caving of softness, of genuine affection without all their teasing and harsh in the way and it was just a lot, they were both going through alot right now and it wouldn’t kill ‘em, so Bucky used his grip on that hard shoulder to tug Steve forward in the tiny space, pull him into a real hug. 

It’d been awhile since he’d had Steve in his arms and considering the number of times they’d screamed and yelled at each other in the past weeks, he was pretty sure this was long overdue. 

And maybe he did savor it a little, letting his eyes slip closed, nose tucking against Rogers neck to just breathe in all that warmth and sunshine and the familiar smell of home, squeezing tight around those strong ribs because he _could_ , they were behind closed doors and Steve wasn’t small enough to break anymore and the past two weeks had sucked and goddamnit, he didn't get an excuse to hug Steve often enough, he was damn well gonna while he damn well could. 

But they had to pull apart eventually, one hand clapping on a shoulderblade as Bucky’s chest went cold and Steve was giving him that little smile as Bucky’s eyes readjusted to the light of the room and the sad loneliness of reality where he didn’t getta hold Steve like that more than a couple times a year and. That was enough of that, it was back to reality now or never and Bucky was pretty sure he’d be liking this reality a lot more now that they weren’t fighting anymore. 

“Now whadda you say we go help with Thanksgiving dinner, Mr. Burden?”

“So long as you're the one fixing Ms. Jones’s door,” Steve shot back, raising both eyebrows with a twitch of a triumphant smile and Bucky furrowed his, shoving that broad chest with an impatient hand.

“What? No way.” 

“You broke it.”

“You said some awful things that made me break it!”

And the guilt trip worked just as damn efficient as ever, all that triumph sinking into apologetic sorrow and wobbly mouth as Steve melted too easy, “Yeah, I. Okay. I'll fix it.” 

“Aww, not with that puppy dog face. S’ppose I can, if it’s gonna be like that.” Reaching around him for the doorknob and Steve was all knitted sincerity,

“No, really Buck, it's the least I can do.” 

And he had a response for that too, but the moment the washroom door swung open there was a loud clatter and Bucky froze right in the doorway as five loud boys clammered over each other trying to get back up from where they’d collapsed like dominos from their extremely obvious eavesdropping post by the door. 

Steve peered over his shoulder and Bucky sighed, rolling his eyes to the sky and barely able to keep the smile off his face. 

Then another door opened, at the other end of the hallway, the swinging one to the kitchen and there was suddenly a very serious Ms. Jones pointing a wooden spoon at the heap of discombobulated soldiers who’d barely made it out of her foyer. 

“You can both fix the damn door, then all you boys better be marching to that dinner table to set places.” 

“Yes ma'am,” every single one of them replied in tandem, and Mrs. Jones gave them a raised eyebrow before starting back towards the kitchen, gesturing the boys to follow. 

Bucky was clapping Steve’s arm as he passed and Steve’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding in his chest and he had no idea what to do. 

He needed his best friend. Bucky’d proven - inside’a just ten minutes after nearly two weeks of hell - that he could straighten Steve right out, but that was just the problem, it wasn’t the kind’a straightening he needed and. He couldn’t tell Buck, not this. He couldn’t risk losing him. Not over _this_. 

 

Maybe it shouldn’t’ve been this easy, but Peggy couldn’t seem to stop surprising herself at what a good time she always had around Angie. And Angie’s family, who had practically adopted her as one of their own now. It turned out, after they got over Angie’s lack of single-ness and determined Peggy wasn’t doing anything to keep her from getting married, every one of the Martinelli’s - and extended - liked Peggy just as much as Angie’d promised. 

Maybe even a little more. 

It’d been such a long time since she sat down with a family like this. The Commandos had extended their Thanksgiving invitation her way too, but she had to admit, as much as she loved that band of brothers, it was lovely to get a break from all that non-stop testosterone for awhile. 

Speaking of brothers. Peggy twirled the phone cord in her hand and wondered distantly what Michael would have thought of Angie. 

She was pretty sure he would’ve loved her. She wasn’t as smart or wild as the two of them had been growing up, but she had such a lovely smile that always lit up the room and she was so supportive, a good listener who did nothing but push people towards their dreams and. Angie may be more likely to be the play princess Peggy’d grown up rescuing from towers than the valiant knight at her side, but that wasn’t necessarily a _bad_ thing, it was wonderful to have in a friend--

The dial tone finally went through and Peggy glanced over her shoulder, checking the office door, but it was still empty. They had an hour to relax and listen to the radio while some of Angie’s cousins changed for dessert - they come from a real traditional family, Angie leaned over to whisper while they were cleaning dishes - and Peggy’d excused herself to make a telephone call, which Angie’s grandmother had been more than happy to show her how to work. 

Peggy at least had the grace to be externally gracious, thank her for teaching her the complex ways of technology, then she had the room to herself for the moment and as much as she adored Angie’s family, the case was quite close to a breakthrough and she’d like to hear the moment it did. 

And finally, the ringing clicked as the telephone was picked up on the other end

“Miss Carter?” The voice on the other end was breathless and a tinge desperate, like he’d simultaneously been waiting by the phone for hours and had to run a marathon to get to it. 

“Mr. Jarvis? Is everything quite alright?”

“Oh, anything but. Mr. Stark has been trying to get ahold of you for _hours_. He’s had me dialing a hundred numbers in the phonebook, just to try to reach you and--”

“Mr. Jarvis, _slow down_. You’ll strain something. You said Howard needs to talk to me?”

“Oh yes, yes, Miss Carter, he’s been _impossible_. I’m terribly sorry, please do try to keep your hearing and I’ll go get him now--”

Something clattered and Peggy tapped the desk impatiently, glancing at the door again, it wouldn’t be long before they came looking for her and what could possibly have Howard so desperate? 

Then an even more breathy and panicked voice came over the phone and she hadn’t thought that was possible. 

“Peggy, is that you? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you!”

“Yes, Jarvis told me,” she started and Howard sounded like he was about to damn burst from here. “Howard, what is it? Did you find something?”

“ _Find something?_ Peg, the blood sample, the file, the chemical equation, all of it…” A deep breath and Peggy could just about reach through the phone and throttle those two men for keeping her in suspense this long, then the curtain finally, suddenly dropped and she’d give just about anything to hang it back in place and stay in the shadowed dark forever. 

“...it’s him.” 

 

 

They were halfway through the game of the post-dinner tournament of Poker versus Craps (at the same time, two simultaneous overlapping games, Venn-diagram format with some of them playing both and the rest choosing one or the other - the way they always played) when Buck finally caught on to all the odd glances Steve kept giving him. He could pinpoint the moment he realized Steve was staring, but he hadn’t been _meaning_ to, he was just trying to figure out how the hell to deal with all this and what he was supposed to do now and what basically everything in his life meant and where Bucky fit into all this. 

Then Barnes’ eyebrow cocked up and Steve was fucked. He quickly looked away but it was too late, Bucky was leaning into his space, close and personal with his voice all rumbly quiet as he teased, “You could keep starin’, but a sketch’ll last longer, y’know.”

And that’s exactly when it all hit him. 

And by all, he meant _all_ , as in _everything_. 

The first of which on the list was the number of times he’d drawn those quirked, teasing lips. The number of times he’d drawn Bucky’s _mouth_ , the one even Thompson had mistaken for Steve’s girl’s, the mouth those assholes in the diner who called them _boyfriends_ had said - "Aw, look, pretty waiter's got a leash on his boyfriend. You'd've thought it was the other way around with those pink cock-sucking lips. Made for way more than taking orders." 

Taking orders, his right hand man, his best friend, his HC _Sergeant_.

"Is that how you solve problems at home, Rogers?" Jack set his jaw, taking a shaky step forward and lifting his head with a challenge in his eyes, accusation in his words. "Put your mouth on the pretty little Sergeant to make him do his Captain’s bidding?”

The shock hit him so fast and so hard the disgust shouldn’t’ve had any room to knock him off his feet, but suddenly his stomach was churning, clenching so painfully tight and quick he could taste the bile in his throat and he almost knocked over the Craps table as he shot up and ran for the nearest bathroom and promptly threw up in the porcelain basin. 

 

He barely brushed his hand over Steve’s forehead before weak hands were picking him off, broad shoulders trembling as Steve broke, begged him in quiet words and closed eyes to please, just leave and Bucky hadn’t been this worried since Steve stopped breathing in that alley in ‘42. Wait, no, cut that, there were all those times he _jumped outta burning buildings and tanks in the war_ okay no, not helping. Not helping, how was he supposed to just stand here and not help?

“Please,” Steve broke again, whisper shattered, eyes squeezed shut so tight there was water prickling at the corners and it was against every bone and fiber in his body that Bucky slowly slowly backed outta the room, hovering at the doorway just a moment but Steve didn’t call for him to stop, didn’t take it back and he sucked in all the air he could and quietly closed the door to the bathroom behind him. 

“Is Cap okay?” Gabe was hovering just outside the door and thankfully the rest of the Commandos were still in playing cards because this didn’t need to become an even bigger scene than it already was. 

“Yeah, Jones, he’s fine. Well, not exactly...we were at Stark’s the other day and he was playing around somethin’ with Steve’s blood, I’m sure it’s just some side effect of ridiculous scientific experimentation.” He offered a grim smile and Gabe wasn’t looking any less worried. “Look, just keep it under wraps. He technically doesn’t have any allergies anymore, and your mom’s food was _wonderful_ , I don’t want her thinkin’ any different.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t worried about that,” Gabe waved aside, but his worried gaze was still on the door. “You mind if I sit with him for a bit?”

“Course not. He’s your team member too.”

“But he’s your-- Yeah. Yeah, okay. If you’re sure you don’t wanna...”

“He said he doesn’t want me there,” Bucky said and Jones’ eyes went wide but that was nothing compared to the way Bucky was cringing at the words aloud. Fuck. “I mean. He may be fine with you, I dunno.”

Felt like he didn’t know a single thing anymore. Not about Steve, anyways. 

“I’ll do what I can to take care’a him, Barnes.”

“Thanks.” He clapped Jones on the shoulder and the bathroom door was opening again slowly. 

“Captain? Can I come in? It’s Gabe, I just wanna check on you. Is that okay?”

The quiet, hurt _“yeah”_ in reply broke Bucky’s heart all over again. 

 

By the time he sat back down to cards, the banter had settled down considerably and all eyes were on him, even if nobody was asking the question aloud. Bucky was back, without Steve, and that wasn’t something that happened. 

“He okay?” Dugan muttered under his breath, setting a card down on the pile at the same time to cover up the noise from the rest of the Jones’ playing their game across the room. 

“Gabe’s with him,” Bucky answered instead, scooping up the closest pair of dice. 

“Pourquoi es-tu pas?” 

Bucky didn’t answer that one, releasing his hand to clatter against the backboard instead. He was pretty sure they got the message loud and clear enough. 

“We sure missed you on that Russian mission, Barnes. He’s harder to keep an eye on than you’d think.” Falsworth tipped his shoulder into Bucky’s and really, fuck, it’d been _Russia_? Steve had left out that part. He’d thought that mission was in like, Paris or London or something. 

“Yeah, actually. Speakin’ a which. I’m guessing you guys split in teams for that? Who happened to be on Rogers’?”

He didn’t mean to come across accusing, just casual, but Morita still looked guilty as hell as he sat his hand down. 

“I was, Sarge. But he and this other guy broke off from the group, went off on their own. Dugan nearly ripped him a new one when we all got back, but it was a little late by then.”

“Yeah, speakin’a which. I’m guessing nobody knew Steve got shot?” Bucky lifted an eyebrow over the cards he was rearranging in his hand and the various squeaks and dropped-jaws of shock were basically exactly what he expected. 

“ _What_?” 

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Typical Rogers.” He sighed, laying his hand down too and Morita didn’t even make a face at the Royal Flush that destroyed his Full House, he was too busy staring at Bucky with wide eyes and that shocked o.

“What do you mean, shot?”

“As in he came home with a bullethole in his shoulder that he’d dug out himself with a fuckin’ pocketknife.”

“L’emmerde!”

“That _bastard_.”

“I know, right?” Bucky knitted his eyebrows and shook his head, passing the dice to Dernier next. “Who the hell had his six?”

“Well it was supposed that guy he’d snuck off with - some snipy SSR agent, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, blonde guy. Thomas, I think?”

“No, no, it was….” Falsworth snapped his fingers, pointer landing on Bucky, “Thompson. The guy’s name was Thompson.”

Thompson?

As in _Jack Thompson_?

 

Except that didn’t make one lick of sense. 

If that was true, if Jack was the one that got Steve shot. 

Was Jack the one Sousa had been warning him about?

The agent that had it out for Steve? The one that’d bitched usually about Steve’s credentials, until both of them were dicks and that turned into glares and yelling and _the other day somebody shoved somebody and another agent had to break it up_ , Sousa’d told him, he’d said it was getting bad and when Bucky’d confronted Steve in the movies about it, he’d denied any knowledge of it. And Bucky couldn’t help thinking why would Steve lie to him, unless it was worse than he thought, an even bigger problem than Daniel let on.

Wait. He hadn't met Thompson til two weeks ago, a couple days after Rogers came home all bloody and shut him out. Was that because of _Jack_? The hell turned a workplace feud into a full out brawl? 

Was this the whole reason why Steve had been a fuckin’ bitch lately? He'd been even pissier when Bucky’d hung out with the other agent, if he was the reason why Steve was all worked up, no fucking wonder. But Bucky knew the guy, had talked to him almost every day for two weeks now, gone out to drink with him, laughed, teased, divulged deep into their goddamn souls, that couldn't be the same guy that was ruining their lives? 

If Jack Thompson was the agent that was got Steve shot, been there on the mission with the Commandos, the one Peggy said had been disrespecting Steve’s qualifications, even when he had access to his file…

If that was all true, he already knew who Bucky was. Thompson already knew who he was, long before they met for the first time in the diner. 

Or well, not the first time for one of them. Although he sure as hell acted like he had no idea who Bucky was. 

What the _hell_ was going on? 

 

 

“Miss _Carter!_ It is about time!!” She’d barely stepped a food into the lobby of the Griffith and “our landlady” Fry looked like she was about to bite Peggy’s head off and serve it on a shining silver platter to all the other girls at breakfast with a story about NOT STEPPING ABOVE THE FIRST FLOOR. 

“Ms. Fry! How may I help y--”

“This Man has _not left_ for the past _seven hours_!!” Peggy lifted both eyebrows and peered over the raging shoulder. Oh look, Howard Stark. She gave him a little wave and he returned it in kind, grabbing his coat and starting to stand just as a blonde suddenly stepped round the corner into sight and he suddenly became quite distracted. 

“He has been here since TEN THIS MORNING, before LUNCH BEGAN and every girl that walks past him he WINKS AT and--” a sudden glance over her shoulder and the arms were waving, “LOOK! Look! He’s talking to three girls RIGHT NOW! All the residents are terribly diSTRACTED, this institution cannot run in such a manner!! Miss _Carter_ , this is an unacceptable problem and I expect you to solve it at ONCE.”

“I’m terribly sorry Ms. Fry, he’s my...cousin, and he’s come with extremely important news." Wince and she leaned over the side of the raging shoulders, hands cupped round her mouth. "HOWARD!”

A tight smile and a bright wave over matched with eyes that spelled _murder_ if he didn’t hurry and it was barely any time at all before she was dragging him out of the building. 

If it were an other day, she’d give him a good yelling for pulling a stunt like that but it wasn’t, it was today and the only thing she really cared about was what he’d come to say. 

Howard huffed as she shoved him in the nearest alley, ducking away from the sounds on the street with both hands on her hips as she demanded,

“Well? You’re sure?”

Stark rubbed his arm in offense, looking up at her with something like sorrow in those bright eyes. 

“I’m sure, Peg. I wouldn’t sit there and deal with _that_ lady’s wrath if I wasn’t sure.”

The pretentious mustache twitched and she sucked in a deep breath, glancing over her shoulder once before forcing herself to exhale, slowly, because they’d faced a war and made it out the other end, they could handle a hidden file and sketchy experiments in the back of a secret Russian hideout, even if it was pretty clear the whole thing revolved around one of their closest friends. 

“So it’s a blood match. That means that...Barnes is File 17. We can work with that. Have you determined what exactly the substance in the formula is? And why he survived it? Is it some sort of chemical weaponization, maybe an immunity to a new kind of tear gas, perhaps just simple biological torture--”

“Peggy.”

“--I mean, I’m sure it could be anything from a new drug they were testing to an experiment of pure curiosity--”

“Peggy!”

Her mouth snapped shut as Howard lifted both of his hands, holding them calm and steady in front of her like she was the mad scientist instead of him. 

“Listen, Carter. You’re not gonna wanna hear this, but.”

“But _what_?”

“I think…” Stark cringed visibly, shying away a bit as he finally offered up, wincing, “...it’s a bastardized version of the serum.” 

The blood froze in her veins, everything going terrifyingly, instantly still. 

“The serum. As in Erskine’s serum. As in Steve’s serum. The supersoldier serum.” 

“Yeah. I mean, from what I can tell, it’s not quite the same as Rogers’ version, too many discrepancies between their blood,” he continued and he was moving, speaking and Peggy was hearing it all but she still couldn’t move a muscle. “But...it’s about as damn close as you could get. Like a lot less poignant, slightly-messed-up version.” 

Hands waved back and forth to indicate the slightly-messed-up and finally something was sinking in, making her head snap back to the worried face under the disheveled pomade that made him look more like the Stark she’d known in the war than the womanizer that’d been walking the streets of New York since. 

“What do you mean by messed up? Is it dangerous? To him?”

“It might be. Peg, honestly, I have no idea.” She couldn’t stop just staring and thank god Howard had his head on straight for once, acting relatively calm and rational as his eyebrows knit, worry just as much from his nostalgic heart as his scientific head. “Is there any chance he knows?”

“I…” Peggy trailed, running all the side comments through her head, the _I’ll be better faster than I should be_ ’s and the cautious refusal to let anyone anywhere near his blood and--

“No,” she lied, insisted. There was always a chance he didn’t know, and that meant they had one job now. “No, and we can’t tell him.” 

“ _What do you mean_ we can’t tell him?? Half of the scientific process is reporting it!!”

“This isn’t a simple science experiment, Howard!”

“My science experiments aren’t _simple_ \--”

“Not the point!! The point is that we can’t just _dump this_ on him. Even if we’re 100% sure--”

“We are,” Stark interrupted and she kept going, 

“--how do you think that’s gonna help him? He was a prisoner of war, Howard, do you really think he wants to hear they fucked with his bloodstream enough to make him _not human_?”

She wished for the briefest moment that Stark’s eyes were the size of dinner plates over the curse word she’d just spat instead of the awful truth that was slowly seeping back into every memory she’d ever made with the Howling Commando’s golden sniper. 

The serum. Bucky Barnes with a version of the serum. What were they supposed to do? 

Besides most definitely not tell him. And she’d glare down Howard Stark in this very alley until he melted down and agreed.

“...fine! But Peg, only until you figure out what you’re gonna say. I understand it’s sensitive, I understand it’s awful, but he still deserves to know,” Howard hissed, and she’d be surprised as his boldness if she didn’t know how much he loved those boys underneath that too-cool exterior. “So you get two days to figure out how to break it to him gently, then I’m telling him myself.”

That was….absolutely not fair. 

But the finger pointed at his own chest, with the matching raised eyebrows, the extremely-serious look he got about twice a year and he wasn’t budging on this, which wasn’t fair because how was she supposed to just _ruin Barnes’ life like that_ but. 

“Okay!” She finally threw up a hand, other landing pissily on her hip but how was it always her, that just wasn’t fair, she was always the one caught on the worse side of these things and it wasn’t like Howard knew how to tell him delicately but frankly, neither did she, she was a lot of things but delicate was _not_ one of them and to her mother’s dismay, really never had been. 

“And you need to tell Rogers. Tonight.” Howard pinned her with this look and she could not believe she was arguing with him about this right now, this was ridiculous. 

“Shouldn’t Bucky be the one to decide--”

“He won’t _tell_ Steve. You know that. He’d never tell Steve. Which isn’t fair, Rogers deserves to know. Even if he wasn’t his best friend, he’s the only other person in the world who’s lived through a version of the serum, he can _help_. He needs to be able to be there for Bucky, and he can’t do that if you don’t tell him.”

“Since when did the great Howard Stark grow a conscience?”

“This isn’t about me! I mean, it is my scientific finding and genius that brought us all here, but--” 

“Fine. Fine. I’ll call, have him over to talk when he gets back this afternoon.”

“What, you make me sit in the lobby for seven hours but Rogers gets to go up to your room?” 

“Shh, keep your voice down!” Peggy glanced over her shoulder and pursed red lips at that offended face, cocking one eyebrow. “And if you want to climb the side of the building to get to my window, be my guest.” 

A sharp click as she turned on her heel, checking the street before shooting him one more look and starting back off to the Griffith without so much as a goodbye, leaving Howard to stand there in the alleyway with his eyebrows furrowed.

“That’s not that bad of an idea. I mean, I’m sure I could build something that’d use the velocity of that place across the street…”

 

See, it just didn’t line up at all in his head. Not Jack’s seeking him out, not Steve’s weird behavior or the way he didn’t look at Bucky once the entire ride home but had no problem answering all his questions, softly and not at all mad and that just wasn’t _Steve_ and the only solace he had was that the Commandos had insisted over and over they kept in touch this time, had already planned New Years at Steve and Bucky’s place, if it was still their shared apartment by then. 

But that was the thing, Rogers wasn’t being the kind of distant he’d been for the past two weeks, it was an entirely different kind and Bucky had no idea what was going on or who the hell to interrogate to find out. 

Not like he could just hunt Jack down and drag a confession outta him, he didn’t even know where the guy lived. 

Who the hell else would know? 

...Peggy would know. 

Peggy knew everything. What was it they’d all said during the war? When in doubt, ask Peggy Carter. 

Steve didn’t look like he’d be hurling again anytime soon by the time they got back to the front door of their apartment building so Bucky sent him up with their bags and a clap on the shoulder since Steve still wasn’t looking at him and he damn well wasn’t coming back to the apartment until he could find out why the hell that was. 

So it was time for some recon of his own. 

“Madame Fry? Hi, I’m here lookin’ for a friend, does Peggy Carter happen to b--”

“ANOTHER ONE OF MISS CARTER’S _INSUBORDINATE_ MALE FRIENDS??!"

The recon didn’t go so well. 

Aka he got thrown out onto the street by his _ear_ with a very angry landlady shouting at him the entire time, something about an abundance of troublesome cousins and he was still rubbing his ear in pain from the pinch and the slam of the foyer door when the click of heels behind him made him straighten up and spin around, mouth open to apologize for blocking the steps when he stuttered over his own tongue as he recognized the pretty blonde swooping hair.

“Oh hello there!!”

“...Dottie, right?” A delicate hand stuck out eagerly with a rapid nod and he jogged down the two steps between them, taking it and shaking it, making sure to be careful with a grip that weak. “You know Angie, don’t you?”

“I do! She lives here at the Griffith with me! You work at the diner, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Dinerboy Bucky Barnes at your service.” He offered his best charmer smile and her head tilted, one shoulder coming up cutely. 

“Well Mister, I gotta say, it’s not every day you see somebody gettin’ thrown outta the Griffith like that!” She leaned a little closer, big blue eyes batting as she looked up at him - well not quite up, she was quite tall, he’d dare say they were the same height, at least. “You try’n go up to the second floor?”

“No, actually, I was just asking for a friend’a mine. Peggy Carter, you know her?”

“Oh, _Peggy?!_ Do I ever! I just love Peggy Carter, she is the _sweetest_ girl, y’know. If a little troubled, but we’ve all got our downsides!”

“Troubled?” He cocked his head curiously, the movement shifting his peripherals just in time to spot the woman in question halfway down the block. “Oh! Speakin’a which,” two hands cupped around his mouth, aimed around Dottie so he didn’t hurt sensitive ears or something, “CARTER!”

She startled the moment she saw him, eyes widening comically and that was odd, she shouldn't be _that_ surprised, he did visit her here sometimes. But it wasn’t like he was gonna ask what that was about - it was best to just ask outright with Peg, otherwise she was slippery as hell - when the too-loud curly-head blond was still standing between them. 

“Oh _Peggy!_ It’s so good to see you!! Did you have a good Thanksgiving? You look _so nice_ today!” 

“Thank you, Dottie,” Peggy managed behind tight lips, eyeing him as she started up the steps to their level. Well, the tension here was palpable enough to slice with a knife. 

He turned to Miss Underwood, offering her a much brighter, more convincing version of the smile Peg had attempted. “Dottie, I really would love to catch up some time, maybe we can all meet up at the automat sometime--”

“Oh that’d be _great_!” She practically cooed and it took a little more effort but this was what he was good at, his smile didn’t even falter as he continued. 

“--but Peg and I have some...private matters to discuss.” 

He could see Carter go white in his damn peripherals. The hell was that about. 

“Oh, no worries at all! It was great running into you, Bucky. See you around Peg!!” A gloved wave and she was bounding up the rest of the steps, disappearing inside with a flounce and Bucky shook his head, turning back to her Polar Opposite, the pretty brunette who was currently dissecting him with her brown eyes while simultaneously looking like she ran into the Ghost of Christmas Past. 

She was shooting that same tight smile at him before he could even start to ask what was wrong. 

“James, what was it that you needed?” 

“I’ve uh. I’ve got a question, about Steve, and this other guy from the office--”

~~She could not believe the entire time she’s known him he’s had some bastardized version of the serum and she never noticed, never even thought something like this could happen and did she even know the real version of him at all and.~~

“James, I’d love to talk about it, gossip of the SSR is just my favorite, but I really am quite busy. I’ve got an assignment I’m finishing up with Howard with some rather nasty loose ends I need to tie up and unfortunately it’s a bit time sensitive, I must get it done tonight.”

“No, no, Peg. It’s fine. Maybe I can take you for coffee tomorrow? Or, scratch that, I’ve got work. Maybe we can go somewhere to eat after? That isn’t the diner? I mean, if dinner’s not too serious,” he quickly backtracked but Peggy just smiled, one of her real, genuine ones this time and how was it every time she softened like that it felt like maybe, everything was really gonna be okay?

“It’s fine. I think I’m quite aware of all your ulterior motives,” she teased, but it shut down just as fast - 

_dear god_ , actually, she might not be aware of any of them, she hadn't known about the serum, maybe she didn’t know a single thing about James Barnes and what if _none of them did_ but the look on his face was more relieved than she’d seen him in weeks, no matter how dangerous and mysterious he was now, she could meet him for _dinner_. 

It was one meal, it wasn’t like he’d snap and go Johann Schmidt on her or anything, but bloody hell wasn’t that a thought, the simple Sergeant joining the ranks on the same platform as Captain America and the supervillain who’d tried to take over the world.

“Great. Great, thanks, Carter. You’re the best.” He gave her a little salute, looking just like the perfect soldier boy they’d all pretended he was for so long, then he was spinning on one heel and jogging down the steps, calling over his shoulder a bright, “Good luck with your project!”

Oh he had no idea. 

 

 

Bucky got home around sunset. 

The steps up to their floor felt a hundred times longer than they were, but eventually he was pushing open the door, trying to be quiet just in case Steve’d gotten some blessed sleep but nope, the moment the lock slid in place behind him, a ruffled blonde head was popping up from the couch. 

“Hey…” Bucky started slowly, carefully, and those long long eyelashes blinked slow, once and lethargic, then blue flashed and all that pretty light shot dark so fast he swallowed tight as all the air sucked out of the room. 

“Were you with Jack?” Steve’s voice was hoarse as hell, but that didn’t stop the cold harshness still vibrating just underneath that pale face that looked like it was about to start hurling again any moment and fuck, what the fuck was bad enough to make him goddamn sick to his stomach?

“Why?” Was this really what Steve had been fighting with him over for the past two weeks? Was all of this somehow about Jack? How? _How_? A simple bully had never come close to coming between their relationship before, never. If that’s what this was, and Bucky had a feeling it was about a lot more than that. 

Even if Steve was still coming home bleeding, right, and looked like fucking _shit_ right now. 

He didn’t even bother to wait for Steve’s answer before he started across the apartment, because this shit had to stop, they weren’t gonna survive this even if they weren’t technically fighting anymore, watching Steve miserable like this was gonna fuckin’ do him in. 

“Please, just don't talk to him.” A grimace as those broad shoulders tipped, struggling to sit up and he forced himself not to leap across the space between them and help, but Stevie was bein’ stubborn and he knew better than that, always had. “Bucky, that’s not too much to ask.”

“It’s not,” Bucky agreed, leaning back against the closest wall and crossing his arms over his chest, tacking on a very clear, “--if I knew why. You don't ever hate someone without a reason, and a pretty damn good one at that.”

Steve scowled, still refusing to look up from his spot on the couch, hands curling and uncurling from those permafists over opaque knuckles. 

What the hell could this be about? Since when did Steve get in fucking _fist fights_ , let alone with a fellow soldier and SSR agent? The hell could be so bad it came to _blows_? Steve couldn’t afford to just swing all the time now and he knew that, so it had to have been fucking _awful_.

“What terrible, unforgivable crime did he commit?” Bucky pressed and Steve’s jaw was clenched so tight it was clicking. 

“Nothing.”

“What dame did he bully?”

“Nobody. Well, he wasn’t nice to Peg at first, but he likes her fine now. They’re fuckin’ _pals_ now.” The bitter in that statement would’ve knocked him right over if he wasn’t leaning against the damn wall. How he'd been this blind to the source of so much fucking anger that had to have been building for so damn long, he had no fucking idea. 

“Okay…” Bucky said slowly, carefully, shaking his head once and making a face as a couple fallen strands brushed his temples, sweeping them aside impatiently as he pushed the quiet boy on the couch just a little harder. “...so then what is it?”

“Can’t you just trust me? He’s…he’s...”

“He’s what?”

Steve huffed, blonde head shaking now too and they were gonna get fucking nowhere like this, why couldn’t Rogers stop being stubborn and ridiculous for three goddamn minutes, just long enough for Bucky to figure out the hell happened? 

He just didn’t get it, what could possibly be so bad Steve wouldn’t tell him? _Him_? It’s not like he hadn’t seen it all from the kid, the number of fights Steve’d been in?

“What did he _do_ to you?”

“Nothing!”

“Okay. Did you do something to _him_?”

And the look on Steve’s face was all the answer to that he’d need. 

“What did you do, Steve? What, take his golden boy spot on the SSR pecking order? Make him take the fall for one’a your stupid stunts? Ruined his crush on Carter?” Vibrating, Steve was vibrating and Bucky was so fucking close to making him snap, pushing off the wall to take three steps closer, lean down to batter a little harder, 

“Got in the way of that fancy promotion he’s been lookin’ for? Slid into the tall blonde spotlight he’d thought was exclusive to his fancy pomade? Found out his only friend in the office and stole Sousa right out from him?

"What did you _do_ to piss him off? Huh? Steve? You insult his regiment? You belittle another soldier’s war story? 

"You put your stupid nose in his love life, say too many snide remarks about a mistress? What’d you do so _bad_ , Steve, you hit on his _girl_ \--"

Snap.

“ _No_ , Bucky, I hit on _him_!”

It took a couple moments and a lot of rapid blinking to register that, the sharp blue eyes staring up at him from the couch, that fightin’ set to the barely _barely_ wobbling mouth and Bucky stared at the cushion beside Steve’s head, repeating the words a couple times over in his head. 

“You...what?”

“You heard me,” Steve shot back and there was so much fight in those words he could’ve melted right to the floor if the simmering anger came off in heat waves. But Bucky was still floating over it all, staring at that couch cushion and letting the words drift outta his mouth without his brain involved in the slightest. 

“No, no, I don't think I did. Cause I could'a sworn you said you hit on _him_.” And the moment it was aloud, from his mouth, it finally finally sunk in and Bucky’s eyes snapped to Steve’s so fast those broad shoulders flinched involuntarily. 

One, two, three, then two fists were flattening against Steve’s face and he disappeared behind big artist hands, curled and terrifyingly still, so perfectly still he could be porcelain and then the wide back was expanding with a fast, deep breath, and the repeat was so much quieter, as tired as the other had been fired. 

“I did.” 

Bucky blinked a few more times and drifted to the couch, slowly lowering to the cushions and just sat down next to Steve, staring blankly at the wall in front of them. 

It was perfectly quiet, between Steve’s breath stale in his lungs and Bucky’s not even reaching his lips. 

A dozen heartbeats and one of his hands collapsed to his lap, head turning away from Bucky’s blank stare as the other hand held over his mouth tight but he couldn’t take back the words, make himself be quiet now it was too fucking late. Shaking hand over his mouth, Steve stared at the wall and tried not to cry. 

He might lose an entire lifetime of friendship right now. In one tiny moment, the support system he’d had through everything in his life could walk the fuck out, be gone forever, for the rest of his _life_. 

He’d never had to survive without Buck. He didn’t know how. Even when he had nothing, he had Bucky. And to think he'd lose that over something so fucking stupid? 

“What…” Bucky started slowly, still not looking at him, choosing every word so carefully with the brain that wasn’t working at all. “...all does. Hitting on entail? Like, um. What did you say to him?”

No point in fucking stopping now, Bucky already knew the basis, he might as well tell him fucking everything, if he was gonna go because of this, the details weren’t gonna change a damn thing. Besides, he was gonna fucking combust if he had to keep this inside his chest and locked away for the rest of his goddamn life.

A sharp sigh and Steve stared at the hands clasped between his knees, counting down from ten and wondering how long he’d have between the moment he said it and the moment Bucky was out the door. 

Steve closed his eyes, and took what might be last breath. 

“I didn’t...say anything.” Harsh swallow, flint sparking up the inside of his throat and he was damned the moment his fire mouth touched Thompson’s steel one, the only thing left was to hand Bucky the gasoline and let him burn Steve into the grave. 

“...I kissed him.” 

The curse outta Bucky’s mouth was so fast and sharp the air stole it before it could land, shooting up to his feet with a soldier’s twirl but it was nothing but terrified Brooklyn alley as his shaking legs took him to the window, the opposite direction Steve'd thought he'd disappear to but leaving was the furthest thing from the blank, overprocessing mind, shocked lips parting round a drawn gasp inches from the glass like the outside world could possibly give fresh air for his lungs now. 

If he could make himself stop hearing Steve trying to control his ragged breathing behind him he would. If he could make the fingers running rivets up the slick curtains wrap those curtains around his head to unhear everything he just heard, he would. If he could jump down to that busy, distant street below bustling with Black Friday shoppers and just meld into the crowd until he didn’t have to be Steve’s best friend and simultaneously the asshole who’d been wanting all the wrong things his entire existence from the moment he met that stupid sunshine, he would. 

But he couldn’t. 

Finally Bucky turned back around, slowly, but Steve still caught the movement, watering eyes blinking away the shiny as he stared over the armrest space between them with those precious, wide, terrified baby blues.

“You kissed Jack Thompson,” Bucky clarified, because there was always the off chance he’d just taken this entire thing wrong--

Except the pretty, stubborn blonde head was nodding miserably, gaze cutting away and _fuck_. Fuck, fuck _fuck_.

“Did he kiss you back?”

“Bucky--”

“Just answer the damn question.”

“I don't...maybe. Not really. It happened really fast,” rushed words on a shaky inhale and Bucky nodded, made himself nod again, he had to keep moving or the ice creeping his bones would solidify and all the water in his body would freeze up and he’d turn himself into one of those crazy fucking scifi characters that got frozen on ice and woke up seventy years later and he couldn’t afford to miss that much time when those big blues were staring at him now and that jaw had been purple and blue over this just a couple weeks ago. 

“Did he hit you?” Bucky asked him calmly and Steve’s features crumpled up. 

“C'mon, are you really--”

“Yeah, Steve, I am. Did he hit you?”

A quiet sigh of concession and the sharp corners of his voice were still bouncing around the room cutting little irreparable slits in both their skin, bleeding out slowly til Steve finally mumbled, barely audible at all,

“Not until I hit him first.” 

Bucky stopped, startled, head cocking as he looked Steve over again.

“What? You kissed him and then _punched_ him?” He was so fucking confused. 

“He said something,” Steve managed, hands twisting together in his lap, eyes cast down in what, fear? Shame? “...after.”

“What did he say?” 

“None of your business.” And right back to stubborn, blonde head tipping up to stare at him defiantly. 

“Steve.”

“Bucky, I'm not kidding. I'll tell you any other fuckin’ thing you wanna know, but I won't tell you that.”

Bucky couldn't do anything but stare at that locked-down, unbudging expression. He physically could not imagine what Steve could possibly tell him that would be worse than kiss-and-hitting a fella. 

But apparently there was something worse, something actually worse than all that and it was a goddamn miracle he was still standing on both feet this was so fucking unbelievable. 

Except with the look on Steve’s face and the atrocious attitude and all the bad water between them lately? Maybe Bucky could believe it just fine. 

“Fine,” he bit back and Steve’s steely dare of a gaze was still pinning him and Bucky couldn't take that familiar stubborn look when everything about this was nothing like it should be absolutely nothing. 

Spun back to stare out the window, arms crossing tight over his chest but that didn’t stop his ribs from feeling like they were crushing his lungs in his chest. God he was so mad. He was so fucking mad, how could Steve let them _fight_ and _bicker_ for weeks-- Bucky hadn’t fucking got an ounce of decent sleep since before this whole goddamn thing and exactly how long was he planning to let them tear apart their friendship of a lifetime before Steve finally fessed up his fucking secret? 

Bucky spun back around, dizzy with all the circles and it was just _circles_ , round and round but this time there was a fucking mountain in the middle of the train tracks and they’d come so close to dislodging, still fucking might because what the _fuck_ was wrong with Steve that he hadn’t said until Bucky’d pinned him in like this? Wouldn’t he just’ve said before it ever reached that point? 

What point would have Steve kissing a _man_? What the fuck was happening? Why did Bucky know absolutely fucking _nothing_ about this until tonight? How could Steve _keep this from him?_

He stared accusingly at Steve’s spine, the ridges he used to be able to see in the back of that thin neck only apparently there was a single part of Steve Rogers he knew all that well anymore. 

“Were you _ever_ gonna tell me?”

“No,” Steve retorted, disbelief tinging the tone and how was Bucky supposed to live with that?

“Never?”

“Never,” that betraying mouth confirmed, and Bucky really couldn’t breathe. 

Steve apparently could, he could breathe just fine, pushing off the couch to stand, glance over barely his way, eyes meeting for a fleeting moment before nothing, before he was staring at the wall and Bucky was so goddamn hopeless, what the _fuck was he supposed to do_?

“I'm gonna...um.” A hand over blonde, ruffling it up and Bucky was still weak and painfully silent by the window, just watching Steve as he pointed a thumb over his shoulder, blue still cast away from his, voice all off and weird, the way it sounded on those movie reels. Numb. “...Peggy said she needed me for something with a case tonight. So. I'll, um. Don't wait up.”

Don’t wait up. 

And then broad shoulders were turning, retreating, and Steve was walking right out the door, knob turned open and shut and he was gone, just like that, there one moment sucking all the air outta the room and the next he was just _gone_ , not there at all, no air left in the room for Bucky’s poor shodded lungs. 

Steve wasn’t gonna ever tell him. He’d rather rip their friendship apart slow with Bucky entirely in the dark than risk, what? Bucky walking out on him? Did he really have that little fucking faith in him??

Did Steve honestly think that way about Bucky? That’d he fucking just _leave_? 

Or maybe Steve told himself he had be the one to leave, let Bucky pack up all the broken pieces of his heart and his trust and just fucking _walk out on him_?

Bucky had no idea how long he stood there in the quiet silence. 

The quiet, empty, crumpling silence. 

 

The truth was, Steve had to get out, right then, immediately, in that moment because the heartbreak in the split-second fraction he’d seen on Bucky’s face, he couldn’t bear that. And he couldn’t beat to watch the face of his best friend as Bucky packed up his bags. 

He’d rather have it hit in him the chest like a bullet, rather come home to an empty apartment with every trace of his best friend gone, because Bucky’d patched him up from all those fights when Steve was saving people but he could never patch him up when Steve was the sick one. 

And this was a hell of a lot worse than any sick he’d had as a kid. This wasn’t a cough Bucky could feed him soup for, this was in his head, in his soul, and there was no cure. There was no cure, even if the serum _should’ve been enough_ but it hadn’t, he was sick beyond what futuristic science could fix, there was no way in hell Bucky could save him now. 

Not to mention the small detail that yeah, if Steve liked fellas? Bucky _was_ one. And not just any fella, he was the fella that Steve’d been living with and killed for and nearly died for, he couldn’t imagine a single scenario where Bucky wasn’t so disgusted with him he left, he really couldn’t imagine a single fucking reason for him to stay. 

So he’d come home to an empty apartment. And he had no idea what the fuck he was gonna do then. 

 

“ _Steve_ ,” Peggy hissed, jumping up from her vanity with a sharp glare at the window, where he was currently climbing clumsily inside. “You can’t just _come in here_ like that! What if I’d been...indecent?!”

“You’re not,” he pointed out, then his foot caught on the ledge and he was tumbling facefirst into the ground, landing with a groan. “B’sides. What’m I s’posed to do? Knock on the glass?”

“You still have no idea how to talk to a woman,” she accused lightly, but there wasn’t any bite in it as she offered out a hand to the blonde laying in a heap on her floor. “You coming up here anytime soon?”

Steve groaned again, one arm finally lifting like his bones were made of lead instead of marrow. Peggy took his hand, glancing him over concernedly as she dug in her heels and tugged upwards, nearly stumbling backwards as she pulled Rogers to his feet. 

Which was exactly when a loud rapping on her door made them both jump. 

“Miss Carter! What is all that banging around! There better not be a _man in there_ after the _day you’ve had today_!!”

“Shit! Shit, out the window, go!!” Peggy shoved him right back the way he came and Rogers' eyes were wide, pausing with one foot on the ledge as he suddenly looked back at her. 

“Go where?!”

“Roof, another room, anywhere but here! Now!” She hissed and slammed her window shut behind him, barely missing a finger, quickly pulling the curtains. “Mrs. Fry? Just one moment!” 

Steve groaned at the sky and finally found purchase on the brick against his fingers, cursing Peggy’s choice of apartment as he shimmied carefully towards the closest window. If he remembered right, Angie lived right next door, she’d let him in no questions asked. It was just a matter of which _side_ of next door. 

But he didn’t have time to strategize, he just had to pick one direction and _go_. To the left it was. 

Of course, with his luck, especially his luck lately, Angie’s was to the right. 

Which was how Steve found himself rolling through an open window onto the floor of a very shocked blonde who startled the second she turned and saw him, hand shooting over her bright red mouth although thank _god_ she didn’t scream and Steve didn’t have time to think about what kinda girl didn’t scream when a strange, muscular man tumbled in through their window, three seconds later he was on his feet with both hands out trying to make sure the quiet stayed that way. 

“Hi, hi, I am so so sorry, I thought this was the room of a friend of mine, Madame Fry’s in the hallway please just _please_ don’t scream I’m in a bit of a bind - okay, no I’m having a crisis and I _really_ need to talk to my friend, neither of us can afford to get caught and--”

“Mister! Mister, shh, it’s fine! I gotta say, I am quite...sur _prised_ , but no worries from me.” The hand lifted away and she offered a positively stunning smile at him, voice dropping to an even more hushed whisper. “I understand, I’m sure your crisis is _quite_ urgent, fella like you scaling buildings and whatnot.” 

A scandalous smile and Steve all but face palmed, how many times was he gonna have to explain to people that he really wasn’t dating Peggy? 

“It really is a crisis, I promise. I wouldn’t come crashing in here otherwise. I’m uh. Steve, by the way. Steve Rogers.” He stuck out a hand, which the pretty dame took easily, shaking a little vigorously as that bright smile only widened. 

“Dottie Underwood.” 

 

Arms crossed over her chest, foot dangling impatiently off the edge of her bed as she waited, and then finally finally, quick slide through the window and Steve at least landed upright this time.

“It’s about time! Where did you go, half the girls’ rooms on the hall?!”

“That sound like something me, Mr. You Still Can’t Talk To Women, would do?” Steve pinned her with an unimpressed look and Peggy tipped her head in concession and shrugged, scooting from the edge of her bed to the headboard, and patting the space beside her. 

“You have a very nice neighbor, by the way.” The chair groaned under the additional weight of leather as Steve tossed off his jacket, indicating a thumb at the wall behind her vanity.

“Dottie? She’s...something else.” A cocked eyebrow and pretty smile as Peggy lifted an eyebrow, lips pursing around the accent that always got a little heavier when she was nervous. “But anyways, now that you’re here, I’ve got. Um, well. Something rather urgent I need to tell you. It’s...it’s not something you’re gonna wanna hear.” 

“Great. That’s exactly what I need tonight,” Steve muttered, climbing up beside her crossing his legs, one hand shoving through the pomade that was long since destroyed. “You said it’s something about a case? Is it the Zola case?”

“No, no. Well. Actually...actually, they. They may be related, I haven’t even thought of that and I have no idea, but the only tie between them right now is Zola himself and _hopefully_ this has nothing to do with the case the SSR is working on. It couldn’t possibly…”

“Peg, if it’s not about the SSR what’s it about?”

“It’s about...James.”

Steve’s heart stopped in his chest. 

“Bucky? What about him?”

“He’s...there’s no way to say this lightly, there really isn’t, and Steve I am _so_ sorry, Howard and I would’ve brought you in on this earlier but we had to be sure and he’s pretty bloody sure now and I don’t know what else to do, I can’t tell him and I don’t even know what it means, or how none of us knew, o--”

“Peggy. What’s going on?”

“Steve,” she whispered, reaching over the space between them, warm hand closing over his and that was the moment his heart stopped, blue eyes staring at soft, shiny dark brown, world spinning to a sudden halt from the damn look on Peggy’s face, the terrified, sorrowful words dropping into the warm quiet space between them. 

“Bucky has the serum.” 

 

The ceiling stared back empty, ironic mirror instead of the solace a roof overhead was supposed to have. Right. When was the last time he’d known _solace_? Or anything but the constant, never-ending patchup-fight-patch cycle of their entire lives? 

What kind of solace could he possibly find when Steve was gone, when he was just lying here in his bed like if he just waited long enough, the door would open back up and they could figure this damn thing out. 

Steve’d come home. It was Steve. He got himself in a lot of trouble and made some stupid mistakes, but he always came home. 

And if he didn’t, fine, Bucky’d go out and fucking find him. He’d pulled the kid outta a hell of a lot worse physically. Hell, if you counted the serum, maybe even mentally. Okay, that was a _positive_ change and this...

Actually. The more he thought about it? The more he thought about it, the more it made sense, in a kind of twisted way. Steve couldn’t afford physical fights anymore, he was sitting a desk job, of course he’d get all riled up and restless. So he took that all out on Thompson, but instead of just going straight for the swinging, he had to have another one of his _fucking brilliant_ ideas and rebel in the only way he had left. 

That’s...exactly what this was, wasn’t it? Just another way for Steve to fistfight the fucking universe now that he’d kill people with his hands if he hit hard enough? So he was hitting with his stupid big-talking mouth now instead. Maybe this wasn’t all that different from the other fights at all. That mouth had always gotten Steve in trouble, and he was restless, he was a hell of a restless wild thing and what better way to rebel than something that _shocking_?

It just...it wasn’t fair, because there were real people like that, there were people in the world who actually had to struggle with feeling that way about the fellas they liked and. And Steve wasn’t one of them. Steve was just bucking his feet, _again_ , and Bucky’d be damned if he let Steve ruin his life with this little phase. 

Even if the phase hit...way too fucking close to home. 

But this wasn’t about him. This was about Steve, being a motherfucking rebellious dumbass, and Bucky pulling him outta the proverbial alley before he got his ass kicked so bad his life went down the fucking drain with it. 

He could do this. He just had to pull Steve back onto the straight and narrow, because that’s exactly what Steve had always been. Straight. So what if Bucky wasn’t, didn’t mean he hadn’t spent his entire fucking life pretending he was more into dames than the pretty blonde he came home to. Couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way, this was Steve, and yeah, maybe he’d always wished if Steve wanted to explore...that side of things, he’d pick someone a little closer to home, aka _him_ , but actually, this was good, this was good because if he had, god knows Bucky would’ve jumped his fucking bones and Steve wasn’t _queer_ , didn’t feel that way, not at all, all Bucky had to do was show him that, pull him back from whatever fucking ridiculous version of raised fists this was now. 

He could do that. For Steve. He could do anything for Steve. 

The only thing was...how? How was he supposed to even keep an eye on the kid when they only saw each other in the safe walls of their apartment before and after work? And sometimes for lunch? That...wasn’t gonna work. He needed a plan. 

Hmm. 

And that’s when the rapping sound drew him straight outta his head, popping up so fast he almost gave himself headrush. 

Knock on the door. God, Steve was back, and the idiot _had_ left without his key. If it were any night but tonight he’d’ve taken his gun with him to the door, because who the fuck would be knocking at 3am if it wasn’t Steve, but it had to be. Even if Steve’d had his key with him, maybe he was knocking anyways. 

Do this proper, ask Bucky if he could come in and Bucky would wave him inside with an eyeroll, make them hot cocoa and sit him down on the couch and they could talk about when the hell Steve started wanting to kiss boys. 

Because of _all_ bad ideas, _why_ did it have to be Bucky’s _one_ weak spot? 

But hey, everything about Steve was his weakspot, really, so they could do this. They could figure it out. 

His heart was pounding in his throat when he flipped the lock, swung open the door with his mouth already open around Steve’s name. 

Bucky had a split second of time for his eyes to widen, then there was a needle in his neck and the hallway tipped around bright blue eyes and a flash of curls as he hit the ground and suddenly everything was black. 

 

During the war, Steve’d been so sure that the minute it was over, he’d fall down to one knee and ask Peggy Carter to marry him. She was a fireball of beauty, grace, this stunning bright flash of kickass and he’d been so damn infatuated he couldn’t look at her without his entire face showing every inch of the awe, the admiration, these big puppy eyes after the stalking click of heels and. 

And sometimes, he couldn’t help but wonder, if the war had gone differently, if the two of them would’ve too. 

If she’d been the one to sneak into that burnt out bar with him, have drinks over the capture of Zola instead of Bucky. Or...or if, god forbid, Bucky’d...hadn’t made it outta that mission. If Steve hadn’t lept and grabbed his hand in time, if she’d be stepping over rubble to be the one to console him, what that would’ve changed. 

If he’d realized, in the moment that Bucky was gone, that Peggy was exactly the only thing left for him in the world. If his best friend had died, if Steve hadn’t had anywhere to go, anyone to turn to but her, if she’d take him in her embrace, tell him one more time she believed in him. 

What that would’ve changed. Would they’ve kissed? Would they’ve fallen in love? Would he have proposed after all? 

But the war had been Bucky and banter instead - it’d been affectionate shy smiles at the girl he liked while his best friend elbowed him over it and he came back to New York to shack back up with that best friend and stumble like hell around Peggy sometimes, but with the rush of fire and war and thrilling uniforms and the hover of death over their heads that made everyone heart eyed, all the heated glances and flirtations during the war, they were thrown into the sky the same time their uniformed caps were in celebration at the end of it. 

The war ended and Steve couldn’t help but wonder if it was the War Marriage Rush that’d gotten under their skin or if it’d been something more, but even if it _was_ , there wasn’t anything for him to do about it now. Peggy had a full, happy life and he was so honored to be a part of it, he’d never try to squander her ambitions by turning her into the girl on Captain America’s arm, so much less than the war hero she deserved on her own. 

But there were times, times like this in the quiet hours where it was just the two of them that Steve sat here and stared at Peggy Carter and was so awestruck by how beautiful she was - especially on the inside - that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t collapsed to one knee the moment those caps flew up in the air. 

“Steve? Are you alright?” The solid hand on his shoulder rubbed down his arm and Steve forced himself to inhale, exhale. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to take all this right now if Peg wasn’t here, if she wasn’t the one to talk him through everything she’d found on what Zola’d done--

God. Fuck. 

If she wasn’t here, he’d’ve probably punched something, screamed, gone on a fucking rampage and flown to Russia to punch out every asshole he could find who’d dared to lay a hand on Bucky in Azzano. 

He’d been so quiet about it for so long. Bucky did everything he could to walk tall, stand strong, and Steve had let himself forget, let them both push aside everything awful that’d happened to him because that was what Buck _wanted_.

Bucky _didn’t_ want to be shoved full of needles and pumped with the same freak superhuman serum Steve was, only worse, because not only did he _not fucking sign up for that_ , it was some off-version that could be dangerous, faulty, could do god knows what to that beautiful boy and Steve had spent a year at Bucky’s side and never noticed. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Steve whispered, fingers curling tighter around Peggy’s other hand. The fingers wiggled a bit and he released his grip, just a little, didn’t wanna bruise but he couldn’t fucking let go either, he’d fall so hard and fast in the cold his body would break into pieces when he hit the bottom. 

“Howard thinks you should tell him,” Peggy offered gently, thumb sliding back and forth over Steve’s skin. Tell him, right, _how_ , bake him a cake that said _sorry, but your POW torture was about even more than just torture, they were trying to make you into a bastardized version of me?_

But why just Howard? 

“You don’t?” Head turned, gaze locking on Peggy’s and look, the rest of the world was still here, kept spinning even though his was sideways. At least Peg was sitting right there as beautiful and solid as ever, brown eyes so kind and worried and he’d trusted her with his life barely moments after he’d met her, but after he knew her he trusted her _values_ even more. 

There was a reason it was her picture in his compass. 

Peggy’s mouth twisted up a little at the question, answering carefully, each word chosen precisely like one wrong one would spin the entire thing on it’s side. 

“He’s...more dangerous, than even he knows. There’s no telling how he might react.” Brown curls shaking in sympathy and Steve’s eyes cut away, breathing in deep through his nose, back to staring at nothing as he tipped his mouth dejectedly, a flashthrough of vibrating worry standing at the window while Steve sat on the couch and spilled the dark hidden corners of his soul.

“He’s better at taking shocking news than you’d think.”

There was admittedly a big fucking difference between _I kissed a boy_ and _you’re superhuman_ , but at this point Steve had...basically no idea which Bucky would think was a bigger deal. 

God, that was a fucked up thought. Only Steve was supposed to be Good, and if Bucky thought he was sick and twisted, was that worse or better than Bucky being the twisted over-healed one?

“If you’re sure,” Peggy trailed, still looking him over concernedly. “You do know him best.”

Steve wiped four fingers over his mouth, staring at the fluttering curtains on Peg’s window and wondering exactly how true that was. An entire year at Bucky’s side, just because Steve was in a different body didn’t mean he had a right to forget the details of the one that he’d grown up beside his whole life. 

Shouldn’t he’ve _known_? Or at least guessed? He knew about the needles, he’d seen the marks before they’d faded - they’d faded so fast, so _fast_ , why hadn’t he questioned that? Or the bullet in Bucky’s leg Falsworth had dug out with a pocketknife. It hadn’t hit anything major, it wasn’t a big deal, Bucky insisted and he’d only been on crutches for barely a _week_ and everyone had just joked about Bucky being hardcore but he’d _healed_ , he’d healed so fast and Steve’d never fucking noticed? 

“If you think he needs to know, it... _would_ be easiest to hear it from you.” She ran her fingers through the short hair on the back of his head and Steve’s eyes slipped shut, head dipping down as he tried to catch his breath again. 

Why was she so good at this? She was so strong, always knew exactly what to say, and Steve was a fucking _mess_. 

“I know it would.” Swallow and Steve’s voice dropped into something awful, jilted and horrified as the look on Bucky’s face flitted again, and again, and. “But I can’t...tell him.” 

The hand in his squeezed, holding his fingers tight, the way Buck would if the roles were reversed, but Peggy wasn’t in risk of running out of his life, probably ever, and why did this all have to be happening right _now_ , everything all at once, couldn’t he catch a goddamn break for once in his life?

“It’s hard. It’s a lot, I know, even the _idea_ of him being violated like that against his will...but. If you think he can handle it, he does have a right to know, Steve.” 

He wished it was that goddamn simple. 

“Of course he does.” It wasn’t that. He wished it was that. “I mean I _can't_...” One hand rolled in the air, like that could possibly explain the disaster he’d left in his wake running here. “...physically speak to him.”

“....whhyyy?”

“We got in a fight,” Steve muttered and he could _feel_ Peggy roll her eyes as she huffed at him.

“You two get in domestics all the time.” 

Yeah, except domestics happened when you were happily living together and Steve wasn’t even sure about the living together part anymore, let alone the fucking happily part. 

“No, Peg, as in I planned on spending the night on your floor tonight, evil landlady be damned.”

When he looked up that time, Peggy was staring at him wide-eyed. Yeah, evil landlady be damned was a pretty severe statement, it was the only thing he had to say for her to get exactly how serious he was. 

“What in the world could you two _possibly_ fight over to make _you_ run out?”

“It’s…it’s bad, Peg. And I. I don’t know what I’m going to do, what if he’s not even there when I get back? I can’t...I can’t take walking in and him being just _gone_ \--” 

In the streets, by himself, with some unidentified poison running through his veins and body to betray him and no one to protect him while he left Steve and the entire world behind and.

“--especially now, after this, _Jesus_.” 

A sharp, shaky gasp and Peggy’s hand in his hair ran comfortingly up the side of his head as his eyes closed against the weight of it all and he tipped into her solid hand, deflated a little as tight lips pressed hard against his temple, marking him red and dead as Steve forced himself to breathe, just breathe, inhale, and god, why did he have to be so stupid _now_ , when Bucky _needed_ him?

“Let’s get you some sleep, yeah?” She sounded so distant, calling from so far away and Steve wanted to just curl in her lap and cry about all the stupid things he’d done in his life but she wasn’t Sarah, wasn’t anything like Sarah and she didn’t deserve to take all the weight on his shoulders like that. 

Fuck. His mom would be so goddamn disappointed in him. Dragging Peggy Carter and her harsh kindness right down with him.

Steve forced his eyes open, struggling to sit up properly, breaking away from Peggy’s comfort and rubbing a hand down his face, “I should go. We’ve both got work in the morning. And I don’t have a change of clothes, anyway.”

“I’ve got a suit you can borrow.” 

He blinked, rubbing his eyes one more time before turning over his shoulder to give her a quizzical look. 

“Why do you have a men’s suit?”

“It’s more handy than you’d think,” she teased, smile on her pretty face and how was it that something that simple already had one corner of his mouth twitching up again? One hand patting on the comforter and Peggy was swinging her legs off the side of the bed, popping right up on her slippered feet. “I’ll make up the bed for you, c’mon."

“Peg, I’m not kickin’ you outta your own bed.” 

“It’s no bother. The floor’s quite comfortable, you know how well we were used to sleeping in the war.” A tighter smile this time as red lips pursed and she waved a dismissive hand at him. “Truly, I’ll be fine.”

One hand tugging back the comforter and Steve reached over the space between them and grabbed her wrist, blinking away the last of the pitiful shiny in his eyes as he looked up at her with enough intensity to make her pause. 

“Carter. I’m not letting you sleep on the floor.”

“Steve, it’s _fine._ Must you be so righteous about everything?” Hand wiggling free to land sassily on her hip and Steve shook his head once.

“No, it’s not fine. Peg, you know me. Don’t ask that of me.”

A mild glare at him and he could see the gears turning behind the long eyelashes, the tongue stuck hard in her cheek. For someone who teased him about how he couldn’t talk to women, she was even worse at being ladylike. It was kinda his favorite thing about her. 

“...fine,” she finally relented throwing up a hand in grievance. Steve kept the triumphant smile to himself because Peggy really did get annoyed when men tried to take care of her, but it was _him_ , they were different. He was different. “Fine, I can go next door, sleep at Angie’s. Does that work for you?”

“If you want to. I don’t want to put her out either, I know she’s got an early shift at the diner. I _can_ sleep on the floor, Peggy.” 

“Or…” she trailed, one eyebrow cocking up suggestively. “...we _could_ always share. I mean, unless you’re uncomfortable--”

“You talk to Bucky too much,” Steve bitched at her, already throwing back the comforter the rest of the way. “He’s taught you all his tricks hasn’t he?” Voice lifted half an octave, twice the Brooklyn twang, "‘Let’s dare Steve into the thing, he won’t be able to turn down a dare--’”

Peggy laughed, a brilliant, beautiful thing full of light and charm and the lamp could be radiating pure silver moonlight when she lit up that way. 

“I have positively no idea what you’re talking about.”

Steve shook his head, slipping both his feet under the soft sheets, heart pounding a little hard as Peggy climbed onto the bed next to him and he suddenly swallowed tight, freezing with his body half under the covers and his eyes stuck on Peggy’s curious gaze. 

“You sure it wouldn’t be...inappropriate?”

The brown eyes rolled and Peggy slid the rest of the way under the sheets, fluffing up the pillow under her head and by god, Steve’d thought she was beautiful before, the white underneath all those brown curls could be just about the most stunning thing he’d ever seen, more ethereal than any painting he’d ever studied of any goddess under Michelangelo’s hand or Botticelli’s. 

He wondered distantly what Peggy would say if he asked if he could paint her sometime. Not like this, but tall and elegant and powerful the way she always was. Although he had to say, maybe that was half the way his heart was pounding, to see all that raw dynamite shimmering down into a pretty twinkling diamond slow-blinking tired. Soft. 

Even the smile she gave him from across the pillows as he finally laid down was soft, gentle and quiet as the whispered words between them. 

“I don’t know about you, Captain America, but I happen to quite trust Steve Rogers to be a perfect gentleman even when he’s sleeping.” 

Steve smiled, pulling the sheets up over them both and reaching between them to take her lovely hand, pull it to his mouth and press a soft kiss to the curled fingers. 

“Thanks for this, Peg. If you’re _sure_.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure. Now c’mon, if we don’t get to bed now, it’ll all be for naught in the morning anyways.” 

Reach over for the bedside lamp and Steve let his eyes slip closed and Peggy let him hold her hand as he fell asleep, and even if she didn’t get a wink all night, it was worth it to see those stressed, Atlas shoulders raising and lowering peacefully the whole night through. 

 

 

“Would you like me to grab you something from the breakfast table downstairs? I don’t know what Bucky usually makes you,” she teased, pinning back another curl that’d been squashed flat in the night. 

Steve glared over at her from the floor length mirror he was buttoning up the borrowed white shirt in. “Just because I have somebody to make me breakfast in the morning doesn’t mean you have to be bitter.” 

“He actually makes you breakfast,” Peggy’s voice tipped incredulous and Steve huffed, not looking at her as he wrestled the top button against his collar. “He _does_! My, it’s good to be Steve Rogers.”

“Anyways,” he interrupted and Peggy cackled, leaning closer to the mirror with laughter fading on her lips as she pressed the red in careful slopes. “It’s not so good to be me when I’m starting my workday scaling down the side of a building in a too-tight suit to avoid being caught by the landlady from hell when, oh wait, my best friend happens to be a science experiment and I have to be the one to break it to him that all his cells have been royally fucked up when he’s so mad at me I spent the night in your room to avoid him and have no idea how I’m even supposed to face him again.”

“I’ll have you know,” Peggy started, foot on a chair to hike up her skirt and slip her favorite knife in her garter band, not missing the way Steve went bright red in her peripherals. “...there’s plenty of boys who’d give anything to be sneaking out my window in the morning.”

Steve made a strained noise and she smiled to herself, flipping her skirt back down and grabbing her bag off the nightstand, Rogers’ tie off the back of her chair. 

“Besides, the suit looks fine. And we have all day long - practically nine hours - at the office to figure out what to say to him when you get home. You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Steve.” He spun around, giving her a skeptical look as she flipped up his collar. “Well, except maybe scaling down the building in broad daylight. But I’m sure it’s nothing compared to that mission in Brussels, right?” 

“Who the hell told you about that mission?”

“You have to ask?”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Steve informed her. “I really am.” 

“Let’s find out if the serum even allows that first, shall we?” Peggy flipped the second half of the tie through the loop, ignoring the chagrined noise at the comment. She pulled the perfect triangle knot tight up against Steve's throat, shaking it into place as he sighed and looked up at the sky. 

"Why are you both like this? I can tie my own damn ties." 

"It's you who picked us as your best friends," she pointed out and Steve scowled, but he didn't make a single move to stop her from straightening his collar back out, smoothing down the front of his shirt. "Now what do you say we go spend all boring day figuring out how to get your other one back?"

 

 

Steve was doodling distractedly in his notebook and actively ignoring the blonde agent talking to Sousa at the desk he'd swiveled to put behind him because he wasn't looking at Jack Thompson's stupid face today. Peggy's feet were up on her desk, snacking so graciously on some food or another she'd offered his way multiple times already when Chief Duley walked outta his office with the announcement of the day. 

Steve kept doodling and Peggy kept snacking and neither of them bothered looking up from their desks as the Chief's office door slammed shut and his Announcement Voice filled the bullpen again. 

"Everyone, we have a new agent joining us as an advisor and suspect expert on the Zola case," Duley was saying and Steve sighed, shading in the spoke of the sketched merry-go-round, vaguely proud of himself for not shivering at the mention of Zola's name after the things he'd heard last night, and wondering distantly when the SSR was going to stop hiring idiot scumbags that said they knew so much more than they did. 

Chief Duley cleared his throat, voice echoing over the silence. 

"This is Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th."

 

Steve's hand froze before his pencil did, and it went clattering right outta his grip, ridges rolling in slow motion clat-clat-clat-clat off the edge of his desk and landing with a dull thud on the carpet. He still wasn't breathing as the sound echoed in the silence and Steve lifted his head, looked up devastatingly slowly, eyes dragging all the way from shoes he'd shined twice a week back before he could do other housework, dark slats held up by his favorite blue suspenders, the blue-silver swirled tie to match and. 

There was Bucky, standing in parade rest beside Chief Duley in the SSR's bullpen, just standing there in Steve's favorite blue suspenders, hair swished into a perfect pretty swirl and crystal eyes staring straight into his soul. 

Steve's breath caught in his throat, and he didn't even have the chance to analyze those familiar sharp angles for the signs of the serum like he'd been planning, didn't have time to look for all the things behind those crystal blues he'd been blind to for more than a year, because then. 

Then Bucky's sharp eyes slid over his shoulder and landed in a much worse place. He'd have those ice crystals glaring daggers through him before he'd have Bucky look there. 

Because now, Bucky was staring right at Jack Thompson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> muahahaha
> 
> Chapter title from the song [Stuck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id10ASJMzHA) by Caro Emerald. 
> 
> And now, we let the shenanigans commence!! 
> 
> (raise your hands to the sky for the beautiful truth of everyone in the world is a little in love with Peggy Carter and her badassery)
> 
> (Season 2 of Agent Carter kicked my ass holy shit)
> 
> xx


	7. won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy
> 
> Warnings: nightmares/flashbacks, irresponsible drinking, fighting, blood, pain, period-accurate internal homophobia, brief discussion and references to severe torture, inappropriate dancing (nice), sleep deprivation, severe spacing out bordering on disassociation
> 
> Also! spoilers for Agent Carter season 2
> 
> I have no excuses for why this entire chapter revolves around our feisty brunettes Bucky and Peggy but it does. I also have no excuses for why it's 37k except that I apparently have no chill.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy xx

The moment Chief Duley finished his introduction, the room fell into perfect silence. 

“What, no complaints about the newcomer not being qualified?” The chief jested, shooting a knowing look at Thompson, eyebrows furrowing as he took in all the rest of their expressions too. “I haven't heard any of you be this quiet in the entire history of the SSR.” 

“We all know he's qualified,” Thompson pointed out from where he was propped on the edge of Sousa’s desk. 

“We all… _know_ Bucky already,” Sousa added slowly and Peggy finally swallowed the chip she’d frozen around, eyes tearing off Steve’s blank, horrified expression and settling on the one everyone was staring at now. 

“Bucky?” Chief Duley asked and Bucky winced, tearing the sweeping gaze off the bullpen and back to their confused, rather incompetent leader. 

“Yeah, it's James Buchanan. I go by Bucky.” 

A solid, hard blink. 

“And you know all of them?” Duley clarified, sweeping a hand across the agents gathered and Bucky tipped his head in concession, glancing over the few gray-suited agents in the back who were staring wide-eyed at him, and he’d never seen _them_ before so not _all_.

But, well. 

“I've had lunch with him,” Sousa tipped his head, “--drinks with him,” Jack gave a little finger-wave, “--I have a dinnerdate with her tonight,” Peggy rolled her eyes at him, then he was pointing back at Steve, who was just staring at him blankly like the punk had absolutely no idea who he was. “--and I _live_ with him.”

Chief Duley threw up both his hands and spun on one heel, stalking right back for his office. 

“You all figure out this damn case on your own then.” 

The office door slammed and Steve flinched, then Bucky rolled his shoulders, scanning back over the crowd of dramatics he’d spent the past few months getting to know seperately all thrown into one place, and gave his brightest, widest smile. 

This was gonna be a motherfucking mess. 

 

“What are you doing?” Steve hissed, rolling his chair up right alongside the one Bucky was tipped back in, feet kicked up and crossed at the edge of the temporary desk they’d sat him up in - the back row, right next to Peggy’s and right behind Steve’s, catty-corner to Sousa’s. 

Well, currently, he was studying the stack of case files they had on the Zola case so far, figuring out what they knew and what they didn’t so he could start filling in what blanks he could. And he was also ignoring all the looks Steve kept shooting him, which was why he’d eventually rolled over to hiss right in his space, like that was changing a goddamn thing. 

“I thought you wanted me to work for the SSR,” Bucky replied, not looking up from the files as he flipped another page. 

“Not because…” Steve stopped, _those_ words hovering on his tongue and Bucky could see the distressed look on his face without needing it in his peripherals. The voice dropped, lowering as he leaned over the space between them, even closer as he hissed again, “Not like _this_.” 

Bucky didn’t grace that with a reply. Flip of another page, and he could palpably _feel_ the nerves on Steve’s fingertips setting on edge.

“Are you-- are you here because of what I told you?” 

A deep sigh and Bucky finally looked up, tossing the pile of files down on his desk with an audible smack. 

“I have work to do. If you'd excuse me, Captain Rogers.” The chair wheeling back nearly caught the edge of Steve’s as he stood, started around the corner of his new desk without so much as a glance backwards at the blinking, overwhelmed shiny blues. 

Steve watched him go, headed for the hallway for whatever reason and it took everything in him not to follow. As desperate as he was, he couldn't handle making Bucky even more upset at him. 

But he needed to talk, needed to tell Bucky about what Howard and Peg found, the terrifying looming of whatever this serum-ish thing was, whatever it meant and whatever it'd changed and whatever it was going to change, and he needed to whisk Bucky away from ever looking at Jack Thompson again in his life ever and he was gonna fucking scream, he just _needed his best friend_ but how could he open his mouth when Bucky wouldn’t even look at him? 

So all he had left to do was keep an eye on him, keep him safe from all the hell swirling around them that Buck was still oblivious to but. 

But it couldn't be _that_ bad. Nothing awful had happened yet, he just had to. Breathe. Be patient, it’d all work out, right? 

Besides, what was the worst that could happen? 

 

She had positively no idea who Sergeant Barnes could’ve been expecting to open the door with that hopeful, breathless look on his face at 3am, but she could practically _hear_ his pounding heart, eyes shooting wide in surprise in the split second before the needle pierced the skin on his neck, then those big blues were slipping shut and it didn’t matter who he’d been expecting. 

Maybe it was Steve Rogers, who she had on good authority (her-fucking-self, the best authority) was spending the night in Peggy Carter’s room. It was pure dumb luck he’d stumbled through her window instead of Carter’s ignormaus friend, but it was the best stroke of luck she’d had since she left Russia. 

This was _exactly_ the opening she’d been looking for. And me oh my, she’d been looking for quite some time. Ever since she came to this stupid country, donning this stupid persona and following around the fucking _slew_ of discombobulated, ridiculous SSR Agents and diner personnel. 

Her only mission was tracking the Asset - and keeping an eye on the only real threat, which was Agent Peggy Carter - but she’d had positively no idea how _boring_ it would be. She’d been expecting high speed chases, guns and bullets and undercover elegant parties and infiltrating security systems but. 

Instead there was diner pie and nights out dancing and a single knock on Barnes’ door to have him open it weaponless and guard entirely down despite the fucking time of day and it was honestly _wild_ , she had her work fucking cut _out_ for her. To the point of boredom, actually. 

So now that she finally _finally_ had the chance to do something, use just an ounce of her immaculate training since childhood, the pulse was thrumming in her veins again, smile lighting up her face as Barnes crumpled right in his doorway, dropping like a rock. 

“Why yes, thank you, I will come in,” Dottie smiled cheerily, voice an octave higher and pitchy-excited the way she always acted around them, then the act dropped as easy as Barnes just had and she closed her pretty little hands around his ankles and dragged his heavy, passed-out body right inside. 

“Don’t worry dear,” she grit, a little violently as she kicked the door shut and shoved up the sleeve on his sleep shirt, smile widening wickedly as she blinked up at that pretty, slack face. “This won’t hurt a bit! All I need’s a little sample of your blood, we must make sure you’re the right one--”

She froze right in the middle of the monologue Barnes wouldn’t be able to remember in the morning, gaze cutting back to the arm she was about to stab another needle in. 

Only, there were bruises on his wrist. 

“The hell are these?” She picked up the mottled skin, hand flopping over as she held it up to see better in the dim lighting. “Are those implants not fairing too well with that pretty body of yours? Or maybe you’ve been up to some kinky things, sweet Sarge? It really is such a shame you aren’t awake, I’m sure we could have such a... _nice_ time.” 

Dottie grabbed the dimpled chin, rolling Barnes’ head to inspect the high cheekbones, sharp jawline, cleanshaven precious innocence under that swooping dark hair and really, maybe she should consider keeping a much closer eye on the Asset. Red Room had proven many, many times how efficient it was to get targets to fall for you. 

Although this target wasn’t exactly her usual. There would be no more usual targets, if everything went well with this one. She was almost jealous, of how damn important this oblivious boy could be to everything. One day. 

If this was the one they were looking for, anyways. She was fairly sure he was, it wasn’t like tracking a national hero and his sidekick was anywhere near _hard_. But the people up top still wanted the blood sample proof, and personally she’d like the reassurance the serum was even still in him, still working, because if it came down to it and she had to confront the Asset in this manner again, she’d like to know what exactly she was up against. 

That serum could be nasty. Not just that it’d killed all the other test subjects - but that tiny little detail that the only other one who’d survived, that imbecile Captain America, wasn't someone she wanted to piss off. This was only about Test Subject 17, and no American agenda was getting in the way of that. 

But the project wasn’t ready yet, not entirely, and she didn’t have all the intel she needed on the Stark experiments either, so as simple as it’d be to drag Test Subject 17 off tonight, right now, she needed to watch him longer. Test this blood, that was drawing up so easy in the needle it was practically pouring out of his poor veins. 

“It’s your lucky day,” Dottie told him sweetly, dropping the arm back to his side and carefully capping the full needle. “I don’t need you quite yet, although you’ve proven so _wonderfully_ how simple it will be to grab you when I do, so. We’ll see each other again soon, won’t we?”

Another bright smile as she shoved the needle in the purse she’d dropped at the doorway, which faded into a sigh as she realized she probably aught to drag Sergeant Barnes back to his bed. It was better if he thought it all a dream, it wasn’t as though either needle mark would last long enough for him to see them in the morning, once he woke, so with no proof and no memory of anything past opening the door, it’d all slip quite neatly under the rug. 

Unlike - fuck - Barnes’ heavy-ass body. She grit her teeth and cursed quietly in Russian, hauling 17 up higher in her arms, ankles sliding across floors as she carried him closer to the two bedroom doors. There was a 50/50 chance between his or Rogers, and she’d researched enough to know that Rogers was an artist, so the one without the art supplies would be Barnes’ room, by the extension of logic. 

The only confusing part was that the room without the art supplies had a few drawings taped to the wall signed by Steve, while the room _with_ the art supplies didn’t have anything on the walls. Gut reaction said the art supplies room was still Rogers’, and maybe he just...gifted Barnes with drawings. 

Which was odd. But then again, there were a lot of odd things about civilians she’d never really understood and maybe giving your best friend sketches of the two of you throwing rocks off a bridge and smiling like idiots was totally normal for civilians. 

Either way, this bed would have to do. She made a sound of faked sorrow as she dragged him up on the bed, shoving his legs under the sheets without her own. He really was quite attractive, and knowing all the power that lay just waiting under those fingertips...he would be the catch of a lifetime, some day. 

For now she had to leave him sleeping, alone, and let herself out of the shared apartment without a trace left behind, but a dozen new ideas of everything to come ahead. 

Barnes slept on, never the wiser, and sure enough, just like she’d planned, when he woke the following sunrise: a brief moment of confusion before he instantly shook it off as a dream. 

A dream, but Steve hadn’t come home.

Only one thing he could do.

So now he was thumbing through SSR files in the archive in the basement and wishing this sure as hell could be a dream too. 

See, the thing was. Bucky knew Steve wasn’t...queer. But he always had to fight, had to rebel. And now that it was too dangerous to fight with his fists, he was fighting with his lips. Fine. Bucky could work with that, set him back on track to who he was. Steve felt lost without a war, had to make one this way.

That was familiar territory. He could fix Steve of that. There were other battles he could fight, other things they could figure out. Just...not this.

Not this, the one thing that was such a fucking soft spot. His only soft spot, not counting the bruises hiding under his cufflinks, because Steve could fight however he wanted when it wasn’t a rebellion that hid in the true colors of Bucky’s soul. 

A deep sigh and Bucky ran careful fingers over his pomade, distantly wondering how the hell they were ever supposed to get through this. 

 

And fifteen floors up, Daniel Sousa gave a matching sigh to the file in his hands for reasons that really, unfortunately, weren’t that far from Bucky’s.

See, he'd joined the SSR thinking that his curiosity to always know, the drive to always find the answers would be a _good_ thing only now he'd stuck his nose in Peggy goddamn Carter’s business and found out way more than he ever wanted to know. 

He had no idea what he'd been expecting, following her. But it'd been a lot closer along the lines of Top Secret Badass Mission or maybe some side-sleuthing on a lead the higher-ups hadn't let her follow. Or maybe even just some wild, crazy hobby you'd never expect, like sewing club or something. 

But instead? He discovered the last thing he'd ever wanted to find. Peg wasn't sneaking around and acting distant because she had a mission. It was because she had a man. 

Daniel sighed, shuffling the stack of files on his desk uselessly. He couldn't stop thinking about it, the untouchable Peggy Carter sitting down to dinner with Howard Stark - of _all_ people. 

He was the most scumbag, womanizer, terrible-reputation smuck around and somehow, _somehow_ , he was dating Peggy Carter. Maybe it was the money. Or the smarts. Or the fame. Carter had never seemed all too interested in those sorta things, but he knew what he saw, there was no mistaking that. Even the note made sense. HS. Howard Stark. 

She met with him, and often, based on all the secret phone calls. She met with him because they were together, and Daniel didn't have a chance in the slightest. 

How was it just his luck that anytime he liked anybody life decided to fuck him over? When the hell was someone beautiful going to fall for him? 

“Hey Sous,” a cheery voice interrupted and Daniel slid a file with an aggrieved sigh, glancing up as Jack Thompson settled on the edge of his desk. 

“Hey, Jack.” The reply was as obligatory and somber as he could make it, hoping that maybe Jack would just. Go away and not make everything more difficult but apparently nothing went his way lately because Jack did the exact opposite of what he wanted and stayed perched on the edge of his desk, big mouth opening to pry. 

“Woah, woah, what's got you in a funk?” 

“You can tell my mood from two words?” Daniel looked up skeptically and Jack’s bright blues cut away, laughing light and high. 

“Anybody could see how all. Worked up you are.” A vague hand motion and Sousa cocked an eyebrow. Was it really that obvious? “So tell me what's bearing down on that budding genius of a mind?” 

Daniel rolled his eyes and Jack smiled that bright, asshole smile of his that somehow still managed to be charming under all those layers of sodding shit. 

“I’m sure you’ve got better things to do,” Daniel began and Jack clapped a big hand over his immaculately-straight tie, feigning offense as he opened his mouth in a ridiculous attempt at shock. 

“I don’t _really_ come across that uncaring, do I?” There was a teasing lilt to it and Daniel raised an eyebrow, because yeah, he kinda did. 

“Uh. Most of the time?” He tried and Thompson’s mouth crooked sideways, one shoulder lifting unapologetically. 

“Well, you-- _today_ , is that some of the time, so shoot. What’s got you crutched?”

He glared for the jab and Jack’s pretty smile widened. 

“It’s just...I found out…” A sucked breath and he might as well just say it, Jack was sitting there listening and not interrupting for once, had come over here all on his own just to ask if Daniel was okay. And. Well, if it was true, he’d have to get over it at some point so it might as well be now. “...did you know that Peggy’s got a fella?”

“ _Carter_?” The surprise flitting across Jack’s face was exactly how he felt, except with a lot more disappointment and hurt swirled in. It quickly schooled though, shifting into that overly-sympathetic asshole expression he gave with a hard clap on the shoulder. “Aw, poor Danny, I always _knew_ you were sweet on her. Who’s the unlucky guy?” 

“Oh whatever, like you didn’t like her too,” Daniel accused right back and all the teasing slipped as blonde eyebrows shot right up his forehead. 

“ _Me_?”

“You mess with her enough to make up for all the shitty attempts at flirting, not to mention you two have gone all soft around each other after that one mission. I’d’ve thought she was secretly dating _you_ if I hadn’t seen her at Stark’s.”

“ _Howard_ Stark?? Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“So I’m not the only one who thinks that’s weird as hell?”

“...one way to put it,” Jack huffed, blinking wide at Carter’s empty desk. 

“I swear, this place just gets to be more of a clusterfuck every damn day.” Daniel sighed and Thompson’s blonde head shook slowly, lips rolling in as he clapped a hand over his shoulder one more time, sliding off his desk with that daze still over bright blue. 

“You’re tellin’ me.”

 

It was just his luck that the moment he stepped onto the elevator going down (to meet Peggy and Steve in the lobby to walk for lunch - which Carter had set up, he wasn't talking to Steve currently) he of course, was joined on the ride. 

But of all assholes in fancy suits and suspenders in this joint he needed to talk to, it was this particular asshole with his tipped hat and charming bright smile he'd been weasling a chance to get alone. 

And just his luck, here was Jack Thompson, stepping into the tiny space right after him and dear _lordy_ was Bucky ready to have some words. 

Matching clacks as their heeled dress shoes turned, a courteous nod his way and they both watched the silver door slowly slide shut. 

The moment the elevator lurched, Jack opened his mouth to say something, maybe some remark about how he didn't expect his favorite waiter to show up at work, this was better than breakfast in bed or _whatever_ joke he was gonna make, but Bucky beat him to it. 

Stared straight ahead at those closed metal doors and let his voice ring out loud in the tiny space, echo around all the cramped in corners. 

"I know." 

The sudden shift in the air was fucking palpable. The blonde head tipped, peering at him from under the brim of his hat, alarm all over those features that he was playing off pretty well for nonchalant but you couldn't bullshit a bullshitter and Bucky was the greatest bullshitter of them all. 

"What? Where we can find Zola?" The edge on his voice had nothing to do with the case and Bucky didn't bother granting him the clemency of pretending along. 

"About you and Steve,” he clarified, reaching forward to flip the red switch, jolt the elevator to a stop. 

He hadn't thought it'd be this easy to corner Jack, but there wasn't a more controlled corner than a stopped, inescapable tiny metal box held from crashing to death by cables and the blue eyes staring wide at him said he’d figured that much out too. 

The easy confidence Jack usually carried was all shot to hell, shoulders stiff and mouth tight - ha, mouth, Steve had kis--

Actually, Jack looked like he was about to flip the fuck out, and Bucky was about to flip the fuck out if he thought about those lips crashing against Steve’s and _nope_ , he was not going there, he was not doing this to himself, to either of them, he had to turn all that confusion and hurt ~~jealousy~~ into drive, focus, steady hands instead of clenched trembling ones and--

He uncurled his fingers instantly, shoving open palms in the air before one of the two of them cracked and lost their fucking shit. 

"I ain't here to cause trouble and this ain't about you. You haven't pressed charges yet, so I'm gonna go on the hope that you don't plan to. Not that I wouldn't understand if you did, but. He told me it was him that instigated it, so far as I'm concerned you were just the poor bloke who got randomly jumped. I'd apologize on his behalf, except I don't actually...know if he's sorry. Which is why I'm here." 

The tensed shoulders had released a little and now there was just a dark line of furrowed confusion between harsh eyes, an angrier confused face than Steve’s sweet innocent confusion and. They really looked a lot alike, when the individual pieces picked apart. 

So it had to be a competition thing, right? Some fucked up version of an alpha male fight? 

Jack was still staring at him confused and dark - while he had no problem sweeping in to drag Steve outta this shit show, Bucky didn't know how to feel about Jack Thompson. Jack, who'd befriended as some sorta...comeback at Steve, not to mention caused all sorts of hell for his boy in the office, had gotten him shot and god knows what else. 

He was pretty positive he didn't know like. A quarter of the details though, all he had to go on was that Steve kissed Jack and Jack punched him. 

But that was all he needed for this conversation, or anything, because whatever else was between them, _that_ was the thing that'd get Steve thrown in fucking jail. Or, y'know. Killed.

Priorities here, and making an enemy out of Jack Thompson was logistically nowhere near that list of priorities. In fact, it was the exact fucking opposite. If Bucky was gonna fix this, he needed all the pawns in his corner, including Thompson. Especially Thompson. 

So he sucked in a breath and offered up a limb in sacrifice. 

"We've been best friends our whole lives and Steve's never-- I don't know if it's a psychotic break or trauma from the war or just another version of the stupid fights he gets into but I'm gonna find out. Which I can't do from our apartment." 

“You’d do all that, get a job with the _government_ just to watch out for Rogers?” It was incredulous as hell and Bucky wished he could say he hadn't done shit like this his whole life just to watch out for Rogers but. Alas. The only thing he could give was a vaguely regretful grimace because, yeah. Exactly. 

Thompson let out an impressed rush of air but Bucky wasn't sure what the hell could be impressive about that. “He wasn’t kidding when he said his six was always covered.”

No, no he wasn't. Honestly, Bucky couldn't imagine the kind of shenanigans Steve would get up to if Bucky weren't here. Hell, Bucky wasn't sure how long Steve could stay fucking alive without Bucky constantly kicking his ass into shape. 

“Believe it or not, it’s not the craziest thing I’ve had to do to keep him in line.” 

Well, it was close, but. Joining an elite war squad after being told to go home as a psychologically damaged prisoner of war still beat consulting for the SSR.

A cocked eyebrow, disbelieving awed headshake and Bucky couldn’t help but crack a grin, reaching forward to flick the lever and jolt the elevator to a start again. 

Yeah, he knew, it was crazy, but when he told Rogers he’d go to the ends of the Earth for him, he fucking meant it.

Jack contemplated a moment or two, hands shoving in his pockets as he looked Bucky over with the awe tampered down a little, shifting into careful curiosity but at least the tension in this elevator had been cut in half. "You know anything about this case at all, then?"

Bucky snorted. He supposed it was a fair question, all things considered. Did he know anything about the case. 

"Zola? Well. Just the fact that I spent a month and a half getting tortured by his hands, yeah. I’d say I do." 

The sudden widening eyes were more than surprise - Steve had said something, about his Sergeant being tortured, the first hand experience he had with the guy and that was _Bucky_ , of course that was Bucky - but it wasn’t like there was a gentle way to say, hey, I was a prisoner of war and I know this guy on a level so intimate he could feel the disgust in his bones, haunted behind his eyelids every damn time he closed them. 

“I’m sorry, Brook,” Jack offered solemnly and the cracked smile widened a little at the nickname. He’d forgotten, how much he’d enjoyed talking to Jack at the diner. Yeah, he was pissed the asshole had gotten Steve shot and fought him for no goddamn reason, but he was pissed at Steve too. 

And if he didn’t have Jack on his side he’d lose Steve entirely - no thank you jail or being beat to death for homosexuality, Bucky could fight a lot of battles but that was not one of them.

Even if it was a jackass move to befriend Bucky and call him Brook just to have an upperhand, Bucky sure as hell had no problem using Jack’s friendship for the same upperhand. So he meant it when he reached over and clapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder, a silent soldier’s thank you for the condolences.

"It's fine. We've all got reasons for nightmares." The elevator dinged, door sliding open just as Bucky retracted his hand, turning on a heel as he took a step backwards out of the elevator, tipping his head and invisible hat at Jack Thompson’s sharp-shadowed face. 

"--and I'm gonna take care a’ the reason for yours." 

 

~*~*~*~

 

Steve had no freaking idea how he hadn’t noticed. 

He’d been at Bucky’s side basically 24/7 since the war, since the day he’d pulled him from that torture table and how had he _not noticed_? 

Shouldn’t have there been signs? Healing, strength, any of those things? If Bucky had gotten this good at hiding the existence of this _thing_ from him, how much else was he hiding? 

How much else was he _hiding_? 

Did Bucky even know? Or did he just have no idea he was suddenly stronger, healthier, could run so much faster?

“Peg, what am I supposed to do?” Steve hushed, leaning over to keep it under the dull sound of the lobby, stretching the borrowed, too-tight suit at the shoulders. 

“About James working at the office?” She glanced over, arms crossed over her chest and red lips pursing. “You know, I would be able to help significantly more if you told me what in bloody hell you two are fighting about.” 

“It’s nothing,” he muttered back and it was that exact moment Bucky stepped around the corner, sharp and unmistakable, every head in the entire damn place turning to that confident saunter, the crook of a smile under the perfectly swished pomade, the same beauty that’d shone from the top of mountains all dolled up in a crisp suit and. 

Steve turned away so fast he might’ve left marks on the tile, could feel his face burning red for a hell of a lot more than the squeak of his shoes. 

It didn’t mean anything. He always knew Bucky was attractive. It didn’t mean anything. 

“Thanks for waiting,” Bucky’s voice washed over, deeper and so much closer than Steve was prepared for, it took about everything he had not to close his eyes and cover his ears and hide in the closest janitorial closet. “We ready to head out?”

“We are,” Peggy answered for him and Steve had never been so goddamn grateful, keeping his eyes averted as the three of them started for the doors. Goddamnit, he had to make a conscious effort not to walk in time with Buck and even then he could only pull it off it he was focusing like hell and. Almost ran into the doorframe for it and why did this all have to be so complicated--

“How was your first day at the SSR?” Carter was saying, nudging Bucky the way Steve should be but Bucky was mad at him, probably hated him, was goddamn disgusted by him, whatever it was and honestly Steve wouldn’t be that surprised if the next words out of his mouth were - _it was great, and my new apartment all by myself is gonna be too._

But he didn’t, Bucky just chatted back good-naturedly, the two of them keeping up light conversation while Steve kept his hands shoved in his pockets and stared at Peggy’s heels the entire walk to the diner. 

And the second they pushed through the revolving doors - Peggy and Bucky one glass turn ahead of him - it suddenly hit him he’d have to go through _all_ of lunch trying not to make eye contact with Bucky and _fuck_ why did this have to be so difficult?? 

Except. As soon as he and Peggy swung into opposite sides of a booth, instead of swinging down next to one of them - who the hell would he sit next to - Bucky kept walking, heading for the kitchen. 

Peggy raised an eyebrow at him, but odds were he was just going to say hi to Angie or see who was working or something, or. 

Or he could come back out of the kitchen two minutes later in full diner uniform with the tipped hat on his head and a ordering pad in his hand. 

“What can I get you guys?” Bucky asked and Steve blinked dumbly up at him. 

“What...exactly are you doing?” Peggy asked back and it was Bucky’s turn to look at them like they were crazy. 

“...covering my shift?”

“You can’t possibly work as both a government consultant _and_ a diner boy!” The surprise on Peggy’s face was exactly what Steve was feeling so he was pretty glad she said it, since he was still struck silent from the fact that Bucky wouldn’t even _look_ at him. 

Although, with the look on his face right now, that wasn’t such a bad thing. One eyebrow raised, mouth twisted in that preamble expression that always came right before a fight. 

“Watch me.”

It took a few moments for the two of them to get themselves together enough to scrounge up an order then Bucky was on his way and that was just the problem, Steve couldn’t stop _watching_. 

Did he normally spend half his time at the diner staring at Bucky? That couldn’t possibly be fucking right. He didn’t stare more at the diner than anywhere else they ever went so--

So did Steve just spend half his _life_ staring at Bucky?

No. No, this wasn’t happening, he was just being paranoid and blowing everything out of proportion only Bucky still might _hate_ him he didn’t _know_ but even _worse_ was that he didn’t know if had more reason to hate _himself_ because he had no idea what that awful pit in his stomach was everytime he so much as fucking glanced Bucky’s way and--

“--teve!”

He snapped his head forward, blinking rapidly like that could change the imprint Bucky’d left behind his eyes. Peggy was looking at him expectantly, so he probably missed more than a couple calls of his name. 

“What in God’s name is the matter with you?” She leaned over the table to hiss, watching with a touch of visible worry as he ran a hand over his hair, trying to keep stressed twitching fingers from ruining it in the process. 

“Steve. You’ve been more wound up and stressed today than you were the morning you got the bloody _serum_.”

“Peggy, I don’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. With Bucky mad at me, and working at the office now, how am I supposed to. I can’t--”

She tipped her head confusedly, sipping on the milkshake Angie had brought her with a smile the moment they’d ordered. 

“I thought you'd be happy having Barnes at the office. Now we can keep...an eye on him.” The implication was clear through the British accent and Steve rubbed his thumbs together hard, trying to keep his hands from clenching up. 

The serum, Bucky’s serum, there was that _entire_ mess on top of the shit with the office and the lying and the not telling Bucky about kissing Jack and all the fighting they’d been doing and the bruises and the _lying_. 

“We still don’t know basically anything about whatever substance this is, it could always prove quite harmless but either way, now that he’s where we can get closer documentation…” 

Peggy’s voice faded into the background, blurring out just like her beautiful face as a very different kind of beautiful caught his eye on the other side of the room, offering someone a wave and a bright smile that didn’t reach the light crystal eyes, hair swooped up cleanly off his forehead and he just looked so young and carefree in the bright colors of the diner boy costume, it wasn’t _fair_ why did it have to be _Bucky_?

His Bucky, his best friend, his whole world--

 _It wasn’t like that._ Not like _that_ , it couldn’t be, everything he felt for Bucky was too good, too pure, too sweet and right to be anything like _that_. The tortuous, dirty sin of a man feeling desire for another ma--

No. No, he didn’t want Bucky like that, he didn’t want men like that, never, except that he’d. Fucking _kissed_ Jack Thompson right on the fucking mouth and. 

Peggy was swirling her striped straw in her milkshake, still rambling off something about the benefits of Bucky working with them at the SSR now, off on some tangent about excuses to take him to Stark’s or something and Steve was just so _frustrated_ because she didn’t _get it._

He didn’t have anyone. Not a single person who understood, a single person he could talk to because he always talked to Bucky but now that he’d not talked to Bucky forever and then Finally talked to Bucky and now he was in a shit hell of a life situation and.

He was alone, completely alone, during one of the biggest crises of his life. 

Sitting here maudlin, barely able to hear anything Peggy was saying to him, just sitting here and staring at Bucky--

He had! Fuck ! To stop ! Staring ! At Bucky! 

He was still kicking himself for it as they pushed back out of the revolving glass door, with absolutely no idea that Bucky was staring twice as longingly after his retreating shoulders. 

Pit in his stomach, positively miserable in this stupid game of cat and mouse when neither of them were chasing. He still just couldn’t believe Steve had lied to him for so fucking long. 

“Hey Brooklyn, can you grab table three?” Angie swept past him in a wave of clicking heels and Bucky snapped out of the daze, straightening out his apron and grabbing another ordering pad from behind the counter. 

“Yep, I’m on it.” 

He hadn't even swung out from behind the counter yet when Angie was spinning, lifting a hand and her voice again, “Oh! And there’s a note for you up front again.”

A deep sigh from tired bones and Bucky backpedaled, scooping up yet another folded note, dully surprised it wasn't signed with a lipstick kiss on the outside this time. 

Although when he opened it up, that made a lot of sense. Because it wasn't from an admirer, it was from Steve. 

_Bucky. I’m sorry. When can we talk?_ A little doodle of a telephone arched in the corner, shaded like he'd spent a damn art degree on it and Bucky didn't hesitate, crumpling it up in a fist and high-ball arching it for the nearest trash can. 

He wasn't avoiding Steve for no reason. He was hurt. Hurt about Steve keeping something so important from him for so long. And then just. Fucking walking out of the apartment and _not coming back_ and Bucky’d nearly had a panic attack this morning when he'd woken up and searched the apartment with no fucking sign of Steve anywhere, he could be laying bloody in some alley somewhere half dead and choking on his own lungs--

Okay, maybe that wasn't so likely anymore but tell that to Bucky’s seizing heart as he spent half his morning with his head between knees and his mouth gasping for air that just wouldn't come. 

Yeah, he was still pissed. And hurt. Very pissed and hurt. Fuck Steve’s drawings. 

Fuck Steve for doing this to him. Even if he didn't know half as hard as it really hit, how deep this went for Bucky when he'd spent his entire life _dying_ to kiss that stupid stubborn mout--

Dammit. No. Table three. He had a job, and that was table three, not thinking about Steve. 

He sucked in a breath, straightened out the crooked hat on his head, and marched across the diner without keeping time to those familiar boots at his side. 

 

 

Everyone at the office would not shut up. 

For the first time since the serum, Steve really wished he had shitty hearing again. It was pure torture to sit here slumped in his chair, trying to sift through paperwork when there was chatter from every direction drowning out every thought about the very one thing he did not want to think about. 

“Did you hear about the new consultant? The soldier?” 

“--I heard he's got one of the best sniping records--”

“He's a Howling Commando too, haven't you seen the footage--”

“--my sister always adored him, the soldier at the side of America’s icon because he's _real_ , y’know--”

“Oh yeah, and with looks like that no wonder all the girls in the phone room have been going wild--”

The pencil perched precariously in his fingers snapped. Steve didn't blink, didn't register, just folded the two pieces in his palm and tossed them into the trash can under his desk, scooping a new one out of the coffee mug of supplies. 

It wasn't like he could say anything to shut them up, either. He was stuck to this damn hell. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he focused a little harder on the work. 

Another journal flipped open and work didn't stare back at him, Bucky’s pretty face did. 

He shoved it aside, yanking open a folder and wow, of course, what was sketched in the margins but that stupid silhouette leaning against a doorframe. 

Notepad flipped open and there were Bucky’s hands. 

What the hell. What the honest hell, did he have a single journal folder notebook that didn't have a dozen sketches of Bucky damn Barnes? 

Steve just sat there and stared at his desk full of drawings of Bucky and had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do. 

A desk over and behind, Peggy Carter stared at the folders and files and notebooks strewn across her desk and couldn't shake Bucky damn Barnes either. 

They had practically nothing. One of the most important people in her life was the center of a mysterious experiment and quite possibly tied directly as the most important key of the SSR case too and they knew _nothing_. 

Just a chemical formula that killed almost everything rather violently and now they had a person, the only living test subject besides a butterfly and based on the facility and the scientist and the money trails that had led practically nowhere, they could assume they were trying to create a serum of kinds but. Who the hell were “they?” What were they testing the serum for? A supersoldier army? Why stop at one? Or had Steve’s rescue halted their plans? How come they hadn’t tried since? Had they tried since? Or did they only need one? If they wanted more than one why focus so much energy on Bucky once they had a successful run? Why keep him in the main planning room of the facility?

What were they planning to do to Bucky if Steve hadn't shown up? Did they assume their single success was gone? Did they know the famous Howling Commando sniper was the result of their project? What kind of plans did they have during the war? Were any of those ambushes to capture Bucky instead of Steve? 

What kind of plans did they have for him now? 

They needed so much more information. Just because Steve knew now didn't mean this mission was over. It’d just begun. Now that she had help, now that Steve was on her side and working this with her, they actually might get some of those answers. 

But the one that was killing her the most, was that those answers may be waiting at the new temporary desk set up beside hers. 

How much exactly did Bucky know? 

 

 

There were some moments in life that Peggy Carter was purely, entirely grateful she was a woman. Every time she took the curlers out of her hair, dabbed on lipstick, and slipped a knife into the garter belt under his dress was one of those moments. 

There was nothing like getting ready to kick ass and primping to look kickass at the same time. 

Popping her lips together and smoothing down the front of the silky green, Peggy smiled at the mirror, fixed a curl over her forehead carefully, and felt a moment of pity that Sergeant Barnes never got to wear lipstick because she bet _anything_ he'd love to doll up pretty and kick ass too, if he were allowed. 

The door swung open surprisingly quick when she knocked and speak of the devil, Barnes really did have the lips to pull off red, that whole gender barrier was a bloody shame. 

“Peggy?” Crystal eyes swept her up and down, widening surprised and vaguely impressed. 

“Well? You said we were going to dinner.” She waved a hand and Bucky took a step backwards, holding open the door to their apartment and gesturing her inside as he stammered a touch, taking in the sharp heels and the shimmering green fabric, the silver clip holding up the waves of curls. 

“I uh. The thing I was gonna ask you, I already sorted it out.” 

She gave him a little smile, admittedly glowing under the attention - it wasn't every day you stumped a man like that into silence. 

“I figured you might have. But who would I be to pass up on free food and a night out with the great Bucky Barnes?”

Hand on her hip and Bucky’s gaze narrowed comically suspicious, a beat and a half before it widened, sparkling into a smile as he tipped his head over his shoulder, thumb for the hallway. 

“Let me go get changed.”

See, that was the right kinds of friend. The ones where you could show up at their apartment and say hey, we're doing five star dining tonight and they'd reply with let me go get changed. 

It you'd’ve told her before the war - hell, even during the war, on the few missions she gotten to attend with the Commandos - that this would be her life, she’d’ve laughed outright. 

But Bucky Barnes without a gun in his hands was a hell of a different man. 

Even this apartment, she’d’ve never pictured the two dirty, smeared bloody soldiers from Brooklyn in a place like this a year later. 

She leaned against the wall in the foyer while she waited, scanning over what she could see of the kitchen and living room. It was a bit of a wreck in here, not dirty as much as disheveled. 

Normally it was pristine, so the clean dishes drying on the counter and the briefcase opened over the couch and the pieces of wood stacked in the corner of the room said a lot to the state of those two boys since she'd been here last. 

Oh, speaking of which. 

“Peg?” The head peeking out from behind a door turned into shoulders, than the whole broad chest skinny waist long legs as Steve ventured out of the hallway and shoved hands for the pockets of his loose house pants, looking ruffled and soft with his hair gel-free and a light undershirt spanning those impossible muscles, jaw open slightly and blue eyes wider than even Bucky’s had been. 

“Wow, you look. Amazing.” It was kinda breathless and Peggy rolled her lips in, fighting the smile or the urge to run across the room and plant her lips on that stupid sweet face. “Is there some event I didn't know about?”

“You didn't hear? James and I have got a date.”

“You what?”

It was at that moment the other door swung open and Bucky swept into sight, pomade perfect and higher, crisper than usual, accenting the sharp tux rather nicely. But of course, because it was Bucky and he had to always make a point, the bow tie was still undone, black satin fabric curving over his collarbones as he pulled out that beaming smile. 

“I asked Carter to dinner,” he announced, looking rather proud in the arched eyebrow he shot Steve’s dumbfounded expression. “It's very serious now.”

She rolled her eyes and Steve narrowed his a little, but he was beginning to smile, a hint of amusement over the gentle sweet. 

“If you two started dating, on top of all this,” Steve began, half warning and a touch desperate in the teasing that no one in the room missed because they all knew different pieces of what “all this” he was talking about but it was a hell of a lot and Rogers looked like he damn well might break down crying if they admitted their undying love in the next breath. 

But whatever fight was between Rogers and Barnes, there was still that caring underneath and none of them were truly cruel enough to pull the joke that certainly couldn't be anything but. 

“If I could ever be so lucky,” Bucky winked instead, cheeky with an arm wrapping around her waist to tug her into his side and press a puckered, exaggerated kiss to her temple. 

“Stop that,” she scolded, another eyeroll as Peggy planted a hand on the suit and shoved goodnaturedly, a little surprised to notice that from this close, his shoulders sat quite a bit higher than hers. Even in heels, she always forgot how broad and muscled Barnes was - he was almost always by _Steve’s_ side for comparison. 

For being the biggest one in the room by far, Steve certainly looked small now, dressed down and shoulders curled as he melted a little, hands shoved deep in those pockets as he offered a little smile up at his two favorite kickass beautiful brunettes. 

“Have fun.”

“We will,” Peggy promised sincerely, then Bucky was sweeping her for the door. She shot Steve a look over her shoulder, a look that said a hell of a lot more than a night with a friend and wow, was Peggy ever _not_ kicking ass and investigating? Taking Bucky out to interrogate him, that was one hell of a move and honestly made...a lot more sense than them dating. 

Still, though, Steve was stuck staring morosely at the closed door and the empty hallway behind it. Peggy may get to talk to Buck tonight for the case, but that meant Steve didn't get to talk to Buck tonight. Which he was gonna at least _attempt._

Apparently one more day of the silent treatment and hellish useless chatter and distrustful glances it was. Tomorrow, he'd talk to him tomorrow. 

Although what he was gonna say, he had no idea. 

 

She should’ve known - it was Bucky Barnes, when he chose a beautiful fancy place to go for dinner, he was choosing a place famous for its dancefloor. 

The moment they walked in the music hit, live band washing waves over the white-skirted circle tables housing wine glasses and napkins. A little golden aisle down the center of the room that led straight to a huge, open dancefloor where a few couples were twirling goodnaturedly to the music. Sweeping ceiling-to-floor length red and gold curtains, scalloped edges and soft gold lighting and silky dresses spinning while waiters danced aptly between with their curled mustaches and napkins over their arms. 

“I should’ve known you’d chose a place like this,” Peggy shook her head and Bucky pulled out a golden chair with a flourish. 

“Only the best for my dates,” he confirmed, dragging the next gold chair halfway around the table and plopping down in it, chin propping up on one elbow with that curving shit of a smile that wouldn’t fool her in a million years but surely hooked a dozen other girls at least.

“Speakin’a which, Peg, I gotta say - I’m flattered as hell. I mean, I’m used to being the greatest lookin’ guy in a place,” a knowing tip of his head and with a smile like that she wasn't sure she could even deny it. “--but it ain’t often I’ve got the greatest lookin’ gal on my arm.” 

She cocked one eyebrow high, scooting her rolled napkin straighter in line with her wineglass as she pursed her lips and looked over with twinkling eyes. “I’m not here for your frivolous flattery, James.” 

“Which is exactly my point. I’m honored, I really am, but why in _hell_ are you goin’ on a date with _me_?”

It was - quite conveniently - at that moment their waiter showed, setting down two menus and offering red wine. 

Bucky thanked him graciously, gave him the prettiest look and the man smiled all the way through pouring their drinks and the next table over’s. 

Even strangers, apparently. 

But the brief pause gave her just enough time to concoct an answer, fan out her napkin in her lap and offer sweetly to the impatient face,

“I needed a night out, and I’ve heard you give _quite_ a memorable experience.” 

Suspicion creeping into the smile as he leaned back in his chair, fanning his napkin out to match and flipping open a menu with his thumb. “That I do.”

Peggy opened her menu too, scanning through the options and debating what Bucky would like. She let him flick through the pages for a moment or two before lifting her voice over the distant jazz again, distracted and nonchalant. 

“In addition to the small fact that we’re coworkers now, when this time last week you were laughing at the idea of such a thing.” She’d planned to merely peek at him over the top of her menu, but that turned rather quickly into a surprised little jump as Bucky’s menu smacked loudly down on the tablecloth. 

“Ah hah! So it’s an _interrogation_.” Triumphant little hum as Bucky scooped up his wine glass, toasting her ingenuity and not bothering to wait for a return clink before taking a sip, setting it down within reach so callused fingers could run absently around the rim. “There are easier ways than some fancy dinner, y’know. You wanna talk, I could’ve made you something back at our place for that.” 

“Well yes, but then I wouldn’t get to dance. You do so know how I love dancing.”

Crystal narrowed even more suspiciously, wine glass singing quiet and low under the gentle touch. “Mmhmm.” 

“I also quite enjoy lobster. Do you know yet what you're going to order? If not, I most definitely wouldn't mind ordering for the both of us.” 

The singing hum grew a little higher and sharper as Bucky wet his fingertips, spun them around a touch faster. 

“Don't think I've had a gal order for me before.” 

“Well consider this your lucky day. You get to be wined-and-dined by the great Peggy Carter.” An amused huff and in perfect timing, a waiter rematerialized at her elbow. She ordered while Bucky shook his head affectionately, leaning back in the fancy gold chair with a hint of the lazy Brooklyn sprawl, looking carefree and downright delectable in the pristine tux. 

She would _bet_ all those gals had one hell of a time. Just dinner with Bucky Barnes was grand in the eye-candy department, and once you added dancing? In addition to...whatever he did with his dates afterwards. 

Peggy cleared her throat, taking a quick sip of her drink as she waved that thought aside. It was Bucky, Steve’s best friend, she hardly had plans for ever spending _that_ kind of night. And she highly doubted he did either. 

“Wined and dined,” Bucky pondered aloud, tapping a finger knowingly on the tablecloth. “Nothing goes better with that than shaded and interrogated.” 

He smiled at his own joke and she rolled her eyes, fixing a curl away from her face as Bucky straightened up in his chair, one eyebrow cocked as he glanced over sideways. “Although, before you get all your questioning in, I’ve got some of my own I've been waitin’ on for awhile.”

“See? Dinner was just the thing.” 

“I’m surprised you chose dinner so late, though. You strike me more as an ‘I get too hungry for dinner at eight’ kind'a dame.” 

“Did you just manage to call me a dame, a lady, and a tramp in one sing-song insult?”

“Hey! It was a compliment. You got something against Ella Fitzgerald?”

“I most certainly do not. Although it does explain why Steve called me a dame to my face during an otherwise quite civil conversation. He got it from you.” She raised eyebrows over her glass, waiting to see if Bucky’d cringe up at the mention of his name. But no one wore masks like that Brooklyn boy did.

“What can I say?” Cuff-linked arms spread as wide as the pretty smile. “Nobody else to teach the kid a thing.” 

Just before she could reply with some clever play on words to turn the conversation to the topic of why the hell they were fighting, two waiters appeared again with trays carrying plates,

“Your meals, ma’am.” 

Crystal eyes lit up amused as they served Peggy first, bringing Bucky’s plate to him nearly as an afterthought as she teetered a little triumphantly. 

“I’m impressed, Peg.” 

“With the food or the service?”

“Both,” he declared, sliding his knife to carve off another bite. Good. Nothing was better than proving herself to another unprepared unsuspecting male. 

“I do have the _best_ ideas.” 

“Yeah, that’s what Steve says too, but look where it’s landed him. Speakin’ a which...” 

“We just get our food, begin our lovely meal - I’m not at all surprised our first topic of the night is Steve Rogers,” Peggy pointed out, taking a full, delicious bite. 

“Is there a better topic?” Bucky asked, wistful and she nodded in concession, waving her fork as she agreed, mumbled around the lobster in her cheeks,

“Wonderful point.”

“So Steve. And Jack. Do you know what the hell is up between the two of them? That’s about the most evil glaring I’ve seen shot Rogers way, and that’s saying a lot.” 

She was hoping this would be about his fight with Bucky but apparently she wasn’t gonna get to know anything about that. Well, if she was good at anything she was good at digging. Peggy sighed, stabbing another bite with her fork. 

“They butt heads. I’ve done what I can to make them see eye to eye, but simply nothing works.” A despairing sigh that Bucky echoed, tipping his head as he thought it over.

“You'd think eye to eye would be pretty easy with how damn similar they look.” 

“You and I look quite similar and I don't think I'd call this eye to eye.” Peggy dabbed her napkin over her mouth, careful not to dislodge her lipstick as Bucky snorted, mimicking the movement with a crooked smile. 

Then he was leaning back over in her space, because no one could prove a point through sarcasm like Bucky Barnes could. 

One of the big callused hands closed over her own, weaving their fingers gently on the white tablecloth as he deepened the sincere knit between his eyebrows, blinking slow and sweet under that barely-there smile,

“Peggy, I'm hurt. First you trip me to the pavement, then you snag me with a knife, then you break a cup on my hand, come sweepin’ into the bar in that red dress to ruin--”

“You still aren't over that?”

“I'm not done! This list is longer, just you wait--”

“Peggy?” A loud voice interrupted and they both shot upright, Bucky’s hand drawing back instantly as two wide eyes turned for the front of their table, where a very surprised and ostentatious Howard Stark was standing. “Sarge?!?”

“Howard! Fancy seeing you here,” Peggy started, scooting her chair an inch further from Bucky’s as he did the same, both of them exchanging confused glances. 

But the genius scientist looked a hell of a lot more confused than either of them combined; although there was a surprising bit of excitement wrapped up in the befuddlement.

“I could say the same for you two! I, for one, sure as hell did not see _that_ coming--” 

And apparently the surprises never stopped, because the small hand that suddenly wrapped around Howard’s arm was one she knew. 

“Thanks for waitin’, Howie,” a shrill voice cooed, bright red lipstick kissing his cheek loudly as blonde curls flopped and Peggy’s eyes went even wider than Stark’s.

“Dottie??!” 

The blonde head whipped, bright blue eyes lighting on the two of them and Bucky blinked, tryinf to place the puppy-dog excitement and pretty face. 

“Oh my!! Peggy!! And -- Brooklyn, right? I think that's what Angie called you anyways.” It was so bright and cheery and loud that Bucky squinted a little up at her. Oh, that’s right, he’d met her at the diner once. 

“It's Bucky, but uh. Good to see you again…” And outside Peg’s place too, right? He was pretty sure he’d met her then but she looked so familiar, like he’d seen her somewhere else-- 

“You two are --” Peggy waved a hand between Stark and Dottie, and the quite clear way she was clinging to his arm in her fancy dress, bright lipstick still shouting from the mark on his cheek. 

“Yeah, Dot here’s one hell of a catch.” He gave her that smug little grin, quickly amending back in their direction, “I mean we both are.” 

Dottie giggled and clutched his arm tighter and Bucky could barely keep the tight smile pinned on his face. He liked Howard, he really did, but there was something about that girl.

“Yes, um. Dottie, You clean up. Very well,” Peggy pointed out awkwardly and yeah, he’d have to say, the only other times he could place seeing her she’d been all wild gold curls and schoolgirl smiles and now she looked elegant and slicked with her hair in a fancy bun, a few ringlets escaping and shining like the diamonds on her ears and wrists. So much for the eager innocence, right? Maybe that’s what was throwing him off.

“Aw, thank you so much, Peg. You are just the _sweetest_. Howie, Pegs here is my next door neighbor at the Griffith! Did you know that? We are just the _best_ of friends.” 

Peggy gave Howard a tight smile that was even less convincing than his and it took everything in him not to snort aloud, back of his hand coming up to his mouth to hide the break while Carter shot daggers his way.

“Oh oh!! We should all sit together! I mean, we’re both here, and we’re all friends, oh it’d be _so_ much _fun_!!” Bright pink gloves clapped together excitedly and Howard’s mouth opened to probably agree before Peggy quickly placed a hand on the tablecloth, shaking her head once with a quite polite, 

“I'm sure that's not necessary.” 

1) Howard, duh  
2) She really needed to interrogate Barnes, here  
3) Dottie was...distracting to say the least

But it was Stark, and Bucky was grinning over at her like the little shit he was and of course, a waved hand and two chairs were being pulled up before she could possibly protest anymore. 

“Nonsense! No reason not to sit with friends.” Stark gave them his sideways smile under the twitch of that signature mustache, scooting his chair to lean over and offer in Bucky’s direction, barely hushed, 

“Although. I gotta say, I never saw _you two_ bein’ anything more than that.” 

Bucky laughed, bright and amused and open and Peggy kicked him _hard_ under the table. 

The laugh cut off into a wince and a playful pout, then Howard was straightening up, eyebrows raised and knowing as Bucky turned to him, amused crooked smile to match. This was most definitely not fair. Those two, as a pair, they were both such ridiculous womanizing troublemakers and they made each other _so_ much worse, Peggy Carter did _not_ deserve this. 

“Anybody is lucky as hell to get a piece of that though, I'm right jealous.” 

Yeah, she most definitely did not deserve this. All she wanted was to interrogate Bucky on the serum running in his veins and whatever the hell he was fighting with Steve about and.

“Howard Stark, jealous of _me_?” Bucky teased back, not missing the way Carter was visibly annoyed, practically vibrating with it in the chair next to him, offering Stark his biggest smile just to see how much more upset Peg could get before she snapped into agent mode and kicked all their asses. Peggy Carter kicking ass was one hell of a sight, and if he was gonna make it through dinner with Stark, at least _some_ entertainment--

“Or Peggy,” Howard said, leaning in the opposite direction to ask Dottie what kind of wine she wanted before Bucky could even register it. Oh. He blinked a couple times, recalibrating before he shook his head once, waving it off. 

Howard had always been that way, all teasing and whatnot. 

It always kinda surprised Bucky, but after the first time Howard looked him up and down and said “I'm in the business of building perfection but I gotta say, there's not much science could change on you--” 

Bucky kinda. Got a little more used to it. Kinda. It was all teasing, the man was a millionaire he didn't have to worry about people taking him seriously the way the rest of the population had to. 

More Stark antics, and he always followed it up with that teasing crooked mustache smile so you could never really tell if he was kidding, although of course he was kidding, it was Howard, he just liked to get people riled up. Obviously. 

Bucky shook his head again, tuning back in just in time to hear that shrill voice gushing again, still clutching Howard’s arm impossibly tight. 

“Howie here was going to tell me about some of his projects! It's just so exciting. I mean, all those top secret gadgets and things...oh it just makes my little heart beat!” She gave them this bright smile and Peggy was too busy judging everyone over the top of her wine glass to fake a smile as Dottie tipped her head, pinning them both with this cute but strangely piercing smile. 

“Speakin’ a beating hearts, just what were you two lovebirds chatting about?”

Peggy nearly snorted wine out of her nose and Bucky’s instincts kicked in, whipping his napkin off his lap, worried hands reaching to help while Peggy waved him off, coughing into her hand and muttering something about not being Little Steve, she didn’t need his goddamn support, leaving Bucky to glare mildly and plop his napkin back down moodily in his lap. 

But they both avoided the question, a little too long, so Howard answered for them, all smooth and attempting suavity as he exaggeratedly hushed.

“Oh we're all working on...top secret projects and whatnot--”

“I thought Peggy worked at the phone company.” Dottie tipped her head in confusion and even if Peggy was bright red from inhaling wine and choking she’d probably burn that red from the anger in that glare alone. 

“Well sure she does, of course, but she's been helping me with one of my, uhm. Lab investigations.”

Maybe they didn’t see eye-to-eye, but Bucky was pretty sure he could author a book from everything written on Peggy’s face right now. It was clear as day, the daggers that screamed _shut up, shut up Howard, I will put a goddamn fork between your ribs and whisper in your ear all the ways I’m going to sever your limbs from your body if you blow one more thing on this goddamn case._

And see, the thing was, Bucky could read that on Peggy but he had no idea what the hell kinda top secret project, case, and/or “lab investigations” they were doing together, although Peg had been spending a suspicious amount of time with Howard, in addition to the suspicious phone calls and whatever Steve had taken to his lab when Howard had tried to get him to donate blood. 

Frankly, he was a little offended they excluded him. Yes, clearly, he knew he wasn’t anyone’s favorite, that was Steve’s job, but it was still _him_. This was his squad, his friends, and if they were doing projects without him? What, did they not trust him or something? Did they think he didn’t care enough to want to work on whatever shit they were? He may act all nonchalant and such, but he thought they at least knew him well enough to know he would _care_. 

So maybe he shouldn’t’ve said anything, especially not in front of Dottie, but he was a little hurt and he’d been hurt a lot lately and he couldn’t help it. 

“What's this about? Am I invited to help in said lab investigations?” He glanced between Peggy’s frozen expression and Howard’s flitting one, then Stark was covering up with his glass toasted in Bucky’s direction and a smile that wasn’t fooling anyone, even if did look oddly sincere. 

“You are welcome in my lab _anytime_ you want to be.” There was a touch of insinuation in it and this table was too small not to feel the whoosh of air as Peggy leaned back in her chair a touch to reach and kick _Stark_ under the table hard and the offended look on Howard’s face was the best thing he'd seen all night, he barely managed to shoot a hand over his mouth to cover the huff of a laugh. 

Okay, maybe he was overreacting. He was just upset about Steve not telling him things anymore, that didn’t mean Howard and Peg were deliberately keeping things from him. And so what if they were, it wasn’t like he was important enough to include in top secret high science research, right? 

Whatever. No point being mad, he didn’t need to fight with everyone in his life at once. Bucky straightened in his chair and decided to settle in instead, taking a bite of his dinner as he listened to conversation drift and spark up again. 

Between Dottie’s gushing and Carter’s frankness and Howard’s need to always say the smartest thing in the room and Bucky’s own sass he had no illusions about, it was interesting conversation to say the least. 

But the most surprising part was Stark. Howard hit on Peggy - when his own date was right there! - more than Bucky had in the two years he’d known her combined. It wasn’t that surprising, Carter always shot back the funniest things and it was keeping dinner interesting and Stark was just that kinda guy, hitting on everyone at the table, but still, it was curious to think about. 

He remembered, back during the war, when Steve had come to him so worried about the two of them dating. Something or another about fondue. Right. Peggy had put up with Howard for longer than any of the rest of them had, but Bucky could no more see them together than he could see _himself_ with Peg. She just. Would never give any of them a chance in a _million_ years, and it was obvious she was so out of either of their leagues, but. 

You never know until you ask, right?

A temporary lapse in conversation lined right up with the start of a new song in the background and it was the perfect window to hold out a palm, tip his head for the open floor and ask Peggy for a dance. 

She agreed quicker than he’d seen her agree to anything in his life and jeez, maybe he should bring Stark and annoying blondes to all his dinner dates. 

He’d barely led her onto the floor before he asked the question, just out of earshot under all the loud jazz. 

“You're not into Howard are you?” 

“Absolutely not, no.” A quick shake of her head and Bucky smiled, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in close, swaying them quick to the side with a saxophone scream. 

“Good,” he told her, taking a slender strong hand to swing her out fast, tug her in even faster. Their chests almost collided as the hand on her back slipped down just a little lower, grinning wider at the scandalous look she shot up at him, eyebrow up but not taking a single step backwards from the close, intimate dance. 

“Sergeant Barnes, are you getting saucy with me?”

“I have a reputation to uphold,” he defended innocently, dipping her low and swinging her back up even closer, curls bouncing as she landed back hard against him, feet keeping up perfectly in time. 

“As do I!” Peggy scolded, coming along easy as he spun her again, tipped them into quick footwork she had no problems keeping up with, glaring up just a tad but moving with him easy as breathing. Oh, Peggy Carter and her challenges. He may have a reputation with the ladies, but nobody knew better than him how those reputations worked and from the way Peg was looking up at him, he had to say, he was pretty sure someone wasn’t quite facing what theirs could be.

“Ah, Peg,” The trumpets called and Bucky tugged her sideways, pushing off a satiny green shoulderblade in a quick circle, catching the extended hand to pull Peggy back close again, “--your reputation isn’t quite so far from mine as you’d like to think.”

The pretty red mouth tipped open, all that British getting only heavier as amusement bordered on surprised offense,

“What ex _actly_ are you implying?”

“Well,” Bucky swept a hand around to her lower back and dipped her upside down, looking down at the affronted expression with a shrug. “Most the world seems to think you’re with Steve Rogers. Although he thinks you’re with Sousa, who thinks you’re with Howard, who now seems to think you’re with me.” 

She parted her lips to protest but Bucky just kept her upside down and rambled on. “And what do I think? I think you’ve got us all strung on your pretty hook. Hell, for all I know, you’ve got the poor soul Jack Thompson too.”

“I beg your pardon!” He didn’t even get the chance to pull her back to her feet before Peg shoved upright on her own, stepping on his foot in the process, although that was probably on purpose. “How dare you imply I’m intentionally leading you all on--”

“Oh Peg. I don’t think it’s intentional at all!” He widened his pretty silver eyes, pure honest and Peggy’s glowering lowered like seven notches, all open confusion now as Bucky slid a warm palm down her arm and smiled encouraging as he could, one looker to another. “That’s the beauty of it. You’re accidentally _me._ ”

She was still studying him with narrow eyes, but when Bucky offered a hand to her again she took it, let him sweep her back into the dance. He got a count and a half of the narrowed distrust before Carter shook her pretty head, still all disbelief like that was the most wild thing she’d heard all night. 

“Oh, don’t act so shocked. I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” Bucky assured, sweet sarcasm as he smiled brightly and offered purely innocently, “After all, a few nights ago, it was your floor Stevie slept on, right?”

“Actually, no,” She replied haughtily, like she’d never let Steve stay over in a million years and it was pretty clear it wasn’t a lie, but Bucky saw _right_ through her. So Steve didn’t sleep on her floor then, which only meant one thing.

A tight spin that landed them close and swaying again, close enough that silky fabric wasn’t hiding any of the curves under that dress.

“Ah hah, Peggy, you _minx_. You let him sleep right in your bed with you, didn’t you?" Caught out, boom and sold, he fuckin' thought so. "And you wonder why we’re all spinning ‘round your pretty carousel. Shh. Before you scold, it’s Steve, I know him and his morals better than anybody. I don’t have to ask. Not for him, anyways.” 

One step, two, spinning them round and he’d somehow shocked her into somewhat of a silence, blinking up at him like she couldn’t believe he’d called her on it, but it took one to know one and he sure as hell knew one. 

“But I have to wonder, if it were me crawling through your window in dire need one night, would you trust me to sleep beneath your sheets?” It’d turned all teasing now, good-natured teasing and it was a good thing Carter had a hard shell, any other girl would have squealed in offense and stamped on his foot and ran off by now, instead of turning her nose up haughtily at the scandalous question.

“No, Mr. Barnes, I would not.” Ahh, he got a Mister instead of Sergeant, so that’s how it was gonna be. Bucky smiled wider and Peggy glared a little haughtier but he had her right where he wanted her, spinning easily under his finger in a wave of tumbling brown curls,

“And why is that, Miss Carter? Is it because you don’t trust these hands--”

Wrist flicked, tugging so quick and hard that time Peg stumbled into his chest, one palm over his heart as they both came to a shocking halt, big wide brown eyes staring up at him, dark and just as fiery as the blue ones staring back down. 

“--or your own?” He finished breathily and the brown curls shook once, a touch too slow.

“The mouth on you,” she breathed, gaze caught on the very thing she’d just accused him of and Bucky was pretty sure she could feel his heart pounding under her hand, mostly adrenaline and dancing and a touch the proximity and all that burning fire so close. It was really an unfair advantage, it wasn’t like the hand he had on her lower back was gonna tell him a damn thing about her pulse.

Those brown eyes told a hell of a story though, and just like Peggy’d said. The mouth on him, right?

“I know,” Bucky replied, crooking up in a side smile that made her gaze finally flick back up to his, wide and almost overwhelmed. He just _had to_. 

“It’s not even my best feature,” he pointed out cheekily and just like that the moment of tension broke, the hand on his chest smacking him hard enough to push off, nearly sending herself into the next dancing couple and Bucky quickly tugged her back in, not so close this time but saving the embarrassment of tripping over the poor Charleston folks. 

“Oh, you’re impossible,” Carter declared and Bucky smiled, simple footwork pulling them out of harm’s way and into an easy sway. 

“Mmm. So I’ve been told, many many times. But no moreso than you. You don’t have me fooled for one moment, Miss Carter.” She began to protest again and Bucky squeezed her hand, shaking his head once to continue over the useless protests again. “I’ve seen more heat behind those innocent eyes than half the fellas who pick up girls on the streets. You could have--”

Spin out as the last chords of the song swung high, swinging back to a stop with her knee hitched over his hip. 

“--anybody you want. Just one question, then-” She wasn’t as petite as the girls he usually spun-dipped but if you couldn’t dip a full-figured woman, you couldn’t dip at all. And Peg pulled into it beautiful, tipped upside down over his leg, one heel kicked up for dramatic effect. They didn’t have to see eye-to-eye to both be absolute drama queens, final bursting chord of the song lining up perfectly for him to drop the question in perfect silence. 

“...who do you _want_?”

The next song started up, something bright and lighter and Peggy just smiled brightly up at him, a dozen secrets in all that pretty red. 

“I think even more curious,” she deflected, landing back gracefully on her feet as Bucky sat her down, red-fingernailed palm patting his chest one more time, right back on top like she somehow always managed. “--with charm like this, James, why don’t you have a dame of your own? Too scared?” 

He returned that secretive smile, even wider than Peg had dared, and told her about the most honest thing he’d ever answered to that question. 

“Too busy.” 

 

(Being in love with Steve.) 

 

~*~*~

 

It wouldn’t make him feel any better to know, but at least Bucky wasn’t the only one. 

Steve Rogers was sitting at his desk, angsting pretty clearly even from all the way on the other side of the room. But god, even pissed, he was beautiful. Bottom lip out, pouting as he rolled a pencil uselessly between his fingers and stared blankly at the wall. Even without all the fire that was usually behind blue eyes, they were still one of the sharpest, brightest blues in the world. Accented perfectly by the swooping pretty blonde hair and those ridiculously broad shoulders. 

Shoulders that were currently so tense it looked like he was about to fight the damn wall itself. 

Not that that’d be all that much of a surprise. 

He still couldn’t figure out if Bucky hated him or what, but it felt like years since he’d seen him last and he wasn’t sure if he wanted Bucky to come sweeping in now or never show up here again. 

Not that anyone on the other side of the room could tell that. 

“Jack,” Daniel just about jumped out of his chair in surprise, taking in the dark furrow and the pissed-off pursed mouth. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Fine,” Jack shot back, stalking right past the coffee machine with that murder walk and Daniel shot out his crutch and jumped over as quick as he could, grabbing Jack’s arm just before he could storm out of reach. 

“Thompson, the hell is going on?” He searched the bright blue and Jack just narrowed them, bristling up at the question like he was personally responsible for whoever’d pissed in Jack’s cheerios this morning. “C’mon, don’t be like that. Talk to me.” 

Jack all but yanked his arm free, opening his mouth to bark out some snappy thing that wasn’t going to help either of them and Daniel scooted closer, closing his hand around Jack’s arm again, a lot gentler this time. 

“Hey,” he interjected softly, watching as all the bubbling up unstable emotions struggled for a moment before the tense arm under his palm relaxed just a little. “It’s me, Jack. You can talk to me. What’s going on?”

It was about as soft and careful as he could be, every word genuine. As much as Jack was a total asshole and knew it, he wasn’t a bad guy underneath all that and there was some. Strange weird part of Sousa that just couldn’t help but be a little soft on the guy. 

As in, like. Not be mean, he didn’t mean, like. Being _soft_ soft, not. Anyways. 

“Jack,” he tried again, low and caring because he did, he really did and finally the beautiful sharp blue cut away, adams apple bobbing as he swallowed. 

“Just. Not right now, okay?” 

Sousa nodded, releasing his arm instantly and Jack hesitated a moment before clapping a (grateful) hand on Daniel’s shoulder and turning back on his march, albeit a hell of a lot less murderous than he was a moment ago. 

Daniel could wait. So long as Jack knew he was hear to talk whenever he needed it. Frankly, he was a little surprised the _it’s me_ worked, but there was something that told him no matter how much shit he got from Thompson, there was a piece of that asshole that kinda respected him. 

Besides, it was fair he was upset, everything and everyone at this office had been absolutely wild lately. 

Speaking of which, there was Peggy Carter, sweeping in ten minutes late and looking terribly peeved, chagrined to hell and shooting daggers at Jack’s back so maybe something had happened _there_ and. Jeez, did things just ever stop happening around here? 

Apparently not. 

Enter Sergeant James Barnes, who was currently exiting Chief Duley’s office with a dramatic shove of the door, a sharp shake of his head and a suddenly out of breath Chief racing up to burst out of the door right behind him. 

“Sergeant Barnes, Sergeant Barnes, please.” 

Yeah, and if anyone in this room thought Steve looked upset before. He shot up straight in his chair, blue eyes as alert as they’d been dead a moment ago, distressedly scanning the scene, which looked to be pretty interesting if you _weren’t_ inseparable with the star of it. 

Barnes storming angrily out of the office of the Chief of New York’s SSR division said a hell of a lot, and that was before you totaled in the desperation and apology written all over the Chief’s face, the way Barnes’ shoulders were hunched, the slightest tremor in the hands shoving into pockets, looking about as cornered as he'd ever seen a man before. 

“Sergeant,” Chief Duley tried again and Bucky suddenly spun on one heel, trembling finger up to point accusing at the shocked face. 

“You can't _ask that_ ,” Bucky spat and half the room recoiled in surprise at the ferocity. It was downright violent, which said a lot for a soldier that hadn’t so much as swung back an arm. 

“I am here to _consult_. I don't see how digging into my past can do a single damn thing to help this case. Or anything, at all!” If the entire room wasn't staring before, they sure as hell were now. Bucky Barnes dressed to the nines in silver suspenders and a perfect curl in his hair as steel blue eyes lit off, arms spread wide as he snapped at the Boss like nothing in the world could crush him. “Frankly, Chief Dukey, how fucking _useful_ could a single goddamn detail about how that man twisted kniv--” 

But apparently something could crush him because Barnes froze as damn fast as he'd exploded, words halting in his mouth like all the suited feet around the room and Sousa didn't miss it; the instant realization as what he was saying sunk in. 

Which was the exact instant those sparking blue eyes flicked over to Steve. And that's what froze him, Steve, who was conveniently also frozen like a block of ice, staring at Bucky wide eyed with his jaw dropped an inch, lips parted in pure shock. 

Barnes shut himself up so fast he literally sliced his vocal cords halfway through a word, all but choking on the rest of it. 

The world stopped spinning for the three seconds it took for the crystal steel to flick back to Duley, a shuddering breath sucked loudly between his teeth before Bucky finally threw up a hand, head shaking once with it. 

“No. I'm not doing that. You just want horror stories, go to the damn pictures.” 

And with that he was spinning back on a heel and stalking right down the middle aisle for the door. Of all redeeming qualities to have, Chief Duley was either very stubborn or very stupid, because he followed right after him, calling one more time. 

“Sergeant Barnes. We need your expertise. We need to catch this man! We need to put an _end_ to all this.” 

That was one hell of a promise and Sousa took a sip of his coffee, trying to distract himself from the ache starting to settle in his leg from standing this long. 

See, he had it bad, but at least most of his scars were on the outside. Apparently, Bucky’s weren't. 

At least he wasn't looking cornered anymore, halfway between the desk where Steve was staring open mouthed and where Peggy was also frozen in place - jeez, all of them - teetering on one heel and halfway to her desk, everybody wide eyed and silent as Bucky spun back around, his tense shoulders to Peggy and Sousa as he crossed his arms over his chest and glared pretty intimidatingly down at the Chief. 

It was clear as hell the man had shot the best of his argument, fidgeting under the stare down and grasping at straws right out here in front of everyone and their brother, the entire team he was supposed to be leading just watching as he pleaded again, switching tactics so quick even Sousa didn't see it at first. 

“You’re buddies with Rogers, right?” It was desperate and trying too hard, but Steve could barely hear that part over the pounding in his chest, his name suddenly dragged into this mess could not be a good thing right now. He could see perfectly from his frozen chair, Bucky’s eyes narrowing suspiciously as the seconds ticked by, tension high as the roof as they all waited for a reply. 

“Yeah,” Bucky finally said, shifting his weight and shooting a glance to the side, finally fucking finally meeting his eyes and Steve’s heart stopped right in his chest. 

It wasn't surprising that Buck called them friends even when they were fighting and he shouldn't’ve been electrocuted by that look but here he was, staring up at Bucky as the rush of gratitude washed over him because dear god, Buck didn't _hate him._

It was surprising, though, what the Chief said next. 

“So, if he sits in for comfort, can you give the gritty details?” 

In theory, on paper, it didn't sound like a bad idea. It was almost a sound one, logically. Logically, on paper, in theory, a hell of a lot different than reality. 

Bucky paled so fast Steve almost got out of his chair in anticipation of a fucking fainting episode or something. 

White as a sheet, answer instant and as drained and scared as he'd been bursting and terrifying a moment ago. 

“No.”

It wasn't the answer anyone was expecting, which was probably why Duley kept right on twisting wrenches 

“He’ll walk you through it, believe me, he’s trained to handle delicate interrogations, and you two are close, you live together and--”

“No! No. I won’t talk to Steve about this.” It was almost high pitched it was so desperate and the arms crossed over his chest suddenly looked a lot more like they were hugging his ribs protectively than puffing up. 

Steve could do nothing but stare. 

He took it back. Apparently there was still a decent chance Bucky hated him. 

Apparently his best friend in the entire world refused to talk to him about one of the most important times in his life. Steve knew he'd been tortured, he was the one staring in horror as he ran across a dirty room and tore the leather straps off the bruised ankles and wrists, he was the one that saw Bucky’s eyes entirely glazed over, mumbling his serial number and rank on repeat, he was the one Bucky woke up with the screaming nightmares, he was the one who brought him glasses of water and made him laugh before he tucked him back in, he was the one who was there when Bucky had his first panic attack, he was the one who'd scooped Buck into his arms and held him tight and didn't say a damn thing about the tear streaks on his face. 

He thought he knew. He thought he already knew. 

Apparently he didn't know a damn thing. Because Bucky was refusing - in front of everyone, his colleagues, his friends, his coworkers - to so much as let Steve write up the report about it. 

Bucky was refusing to have Steve even hear it. To have him simply sit and listen. 

Bucky didn't want. Bucky didn't want him to even _listen._

The silence had dragged on for so goddamn long, felt like an entire fucking eternity before Bucky finally lifted his head again, mouth pursed and eyebrows knit hard. 

Duley spoke softer and gentler than anyone in the entire office had seen combined, 

“We really need this information, Sergeant.” 

An exasperated huff and the arms unfolded as Bucky finally caved, caved fast and harsh enough to still be sharp around the edges. 

“Okay. Okay, fine, I’ll give whatever details I think might help.” The glare wasn't any less as he lifted his chin, ultimatum dropping serious and unarguable in the dead silence. “But only if I can give ‘em to Carter.” 

“ _Peggy_ Carter?” It was impossible to say if Duley’s double take or Peggy’s was more shocked. Her big brown eyes went wide right as Duley’s narrowed again, lowering his voice to hiss, “Why in hell would you choose her?”

“I trust her,” Bucky replied quizzically, like that was the dumbest question anyone had ever asked him. 

Duley sucked in a breath, leaning closer and dropping his voice another notch, all but gritting out of the side of his mouth, making the dozen agents listening intently to the conversation in the middle of the bullpen lean closer, watch harder. 

“I understand everything tough in life is a little easier with a woman’s touch,” a knowing lilt in the voice that Bucky didn't grant so much as a nod in concession, “--but you can’t ask me to subject a female agent to that kind of sensitive information.”

Barnes leaned back, one eyebrow up as the pissy started to creep back in. 

“Because it’s sensitive or because she’s a woman?”

“Both! It’s not fair. Take a fellow soldier, they’ll understand what you’ve been through. She doesn’t deserve that kind of horror.” The Chief indicated an arm at the room and Bucky tipped his head to the side, expression still shut down but for the vague unimpressed annoyance. 

“You're right about that much. She doesn’t deserve that, but she is a fellow soldier, and one that I trust. If anyone can do this, Peggy can.” 

The confidence would be touching, if Peggy wasn't confused to hell. If Steve didn't look so betrayed Peggy could barely keep her hands to herself as she passed by his desk, she just wanted to pat his shoulder, scoop him up in a hug, assure him it would all be alright but Bucky was already stalking for the glass soundproof interrogation / mission briefing room across from Duley’s office, where the door was currently right back to closed and untouchable again. He was getting his report, softness and pleading aside, and. 

Apparently Peggy was going to be the one to write it. 

It was hard to tell who was stiffer, more upset about this as Peggy sat down slowly beside Bucky, choosing the chair beside him instead of across from him because she highly doubted he wanted anyone watching directly as he ripped open his chest and spilled out the deepest contents. 

But why _her_? Her, he picked her over the man who was practically his other half, her, who spent more time teasing and getting after him than listening, her, who had a lot of experience in a lot of things but surely couldn’t understand this as well as someone like Daniel could. Or even, hell, take one of the agents he'd never talk to again, Agent Yauk did interrogations and hadn't even seen Bucky before yesterday. But why _her_?

Bucky was perfectly silent as Peggy opened up a blank folder, straightened the notebook paper, uncapped her pen. Wrote his name, the date, the subject of discussion down. 

He still didn’t say anything by the time she glanced over in her peripherals, trying desperately to get a reading. It’d be easier to get a reading on a corpse, at least you could see a dead person’s face, their last emotion. Bucky was entirely blank, staring down at his hands clasped on the table, still enough to be a marble statue. 

She gave it a minute, then two, and Barnes still wasn’t saying anything so finally, Peggy cleared her throat, jotting down _107th captured_ on the first line and shot for the question that’d hopefully ease the tension and answer her confusion all at once. 

“This isn’t about our dinner date, is it?” 

A soft snort and Bucky leaned back in the chair, sliding one palm hard across the table, pushing further and further away from him with a slight squeak.

“No, Peggy, it’s not. You’re not _that_ good of a dancer.” 

He sounded exhausted. They hadn’t even started yet and Bucky sounded like he hadn’t slept in years. 

Maybe he hadn’t. 

She sucked in a bit of courage and turned her head, looked directly at his profile, the downcast eyes she’d only seen once before, when they’d first met in that bar in Azzano, the glance to Rogers and cut down, pained and hiding and. 

He waited for her to turn back and she didn’t. 

Finally his dimpled chin tipped, glancing sideways at her as his head cocked sideways, one eyebrow up as lungs deflated, words spilling out with it.

“I just can’t do this with Steve, okay? The kid’s known me my entire life, I ain’t gonna taint that with all the nasty shit they did to me.” 

She heard it. Oh, she heard it. It was more than “the kid’s known me.” _The kid’s looked up to me my entire life._

If she were James? She wouldn’t be able to tell Steve either. 

A simple nod and Peggy spread open the folder's empty contents, letting Bucky study her for a bit before she cleared her throat again and dragged them both back two years right into the bloody, filthy mud. 

“Okay. Let’s begin.” 

 

He was pretty sure Steve didn’t drink coffee. Considering that he’d never so much as gone near the machine since he’d started working here and had actively declined a few offers, it was only fair Sousa was suspicious as Rogers tapped his foot at the coffee machine, hands gripped something tight as the machine gurlged over the mug he’d just dumped a desk full of pencils out of. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t close to Steve like Carter was, but she was on pretty high demand today and Steve hadn’t torn his eyes away from the glass room where Carter and Barnes were talking since they’d gone in there and Sousa had to do something, it wasn’t like he _hadn’t_ seen the two dozen snapped pencils littering Rogers’ trash can. 

Blue flicked to him for a single moment as he hobbled up to the coffee machine beside Steve, then the cloudy eyes were staring right back across the room and Daniel calmly placed his empty mug down next to the humming machine. 

“You holding up alright?” Sousa asked quietly and Steve’s hands tightened around the plastic stirring straw he was clutching, probably making impossible unusable bends in the thing. He didn’t say a damn word though, so Daniel reached over to grab a sugar packet and kept talking. “I know we don’t know each other very well yet, maybe not well enough for me to say this, but it’s pretty clear, you’ve been upset for. A good chunk of time now.” 

The coffee machine sputtered to a stop and Steve slid his mug free, still quiet as he sat it down on the counter, reached for creamer. Daniel put his mug under and pressed the button, leaning his hip against the counter as he looked openly at Rogers’ shut down expression.

“I thought you'd be…elated with Bucky here, but you're far from it. Why?” 

The bent stirring straw flicked for the trash, then Steve was grabbing another, stirring it rather violently in the creamy black. He was about to leave and Daniel’s time was running out so he gave it one more final shot, hobbling just a bit closer so Steve would be forced to pause, turn to him as he dropped his voice an octave and offered a little smile.

“Tell you what. I've got a bottle of whiskey back at my place. What do you say we pull a late night and talk about it?” 

The big hands paused, wrapped around his mug tight enough to shatter it, blinking wide at Sousa. He waited, waited all the way through the coffee machine sputtering out the last of its grounds, waited long enough his coffee was probably nasty and cold now. 

Finally Rogers cleared his throat, looking away, back to the interrogation room, and if his eyes were shining a little bit Daniel wasn’t gonna call him on it. 

“Yeah, uh. I’m off in an hour. If you...don’t. Mind.” 

He nearly fell over reaching out to clap a hand on Steve’s tense shoulder, but with the flickering change on his face, it was absolutely worth it. 

“I’m off in an hour too. And believe me, I don’t mind at all. You know how long it’s been since I’ve had company? Let alone famous company.” 

The tiniest smile curved on the edge of that sad sad mouth and Daniel whistled all the way back to his desk with the disgusting-ass cold coffee he drank anyways. 

 

“It’s just...you really wouldn’t think there’d be that much of a difference, between Manhattan and Brooklyn but there _is_ , dear god there is, it’s like two entirely different states. Hell, countries. France and Italy felt more goddamn alike than the two sides of the Bridge, and that’s when everything _wasn’t_ on fire.” 

Daniel laughed, tipping his head in concession and sipping on the next inch of his glass. It was kinda hard to drink when he was leaned back in his reclining chair, feet propped up and head lolled to the side, watching Rogers wave his hands in the air as he talked. 

And talked and talked, sprawled out on his couch with his tie and jacket draped over the back of it, gray socks with the big toe missing on both propped on the other headrest, blonde wave destroyed and blue eyes bright as he took another swig straight from the bottle and whined for like the ninetieth time tonight,

“Fuck the serum! I can’t believe I can’t get _drunk_ , how fucked up is _that_?? Like, of all people, I think I deserve to be able to get drunk.” 

“Th-the. Serum, thing,” Daniel waved an arm, nearly knocking a photoframe off his side table and drawing his hand back comically fast. “I’m still so goddamn confused about that. You were like...small? And then Stark just...made you grow?”

“Uhhh,” Steve stared up at the ceiling, squinting at it like the answer was written on the white in tiny tiny letters. Daniel tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling too, checking, just in case the instruction manual for Rogers’ serum was written up there for some reason. “I...guess? It’s not like. That simple, and it _hurt_ , but. Yeah, that’s. Basically the gist of it.” 

“I can’t believe America’s greatest hero used to be five foot tall,” Daniel giggled, lifting his glass to his lips again and making a face as he realized it was empty. Again. “Hey, hey, pour.” 

He waved out the glass towards Rogers, tipping over the side of his chair and nearly falling with it. Rogers flailed just about as much as he did, finally grabbing onto the glass and tipping the bottle back into it. Good thing Daniel didn’t care about sharing germs. 

Steve went back to yammering something at the ceiling and Daniel swished around the alcohol in his glass, staring at it contemplatively. Rogers was actually pretty cool like this. Relaxed and complaining and story-telling and laughing and drinking Daniel’s whiskey out the bottle. 

Sousa glanced at the blonde hair in his peripherals and wondered distantly if Jack would ever lay on his couch and smile at the ceiling like that, if he had a side to him this soft and vulnerable too. 

Vulnerable. Hadn’t he tried to get Rogers drunk to talk about something specifically? Oh _yeah_. Bucky. They were friends their whole lives, even back when Steve was all tiny. 

Tiny Steve and Bucky, that was. A sight to imagine. Oh, _oh, hold on,_

“WAIT!” He suddenly shouted, and Rogers flopped his head sideways, eyebrows raised as he looked over at Sousa, who was struggling uprightish as he waved both hands, nearly sloshing out the rest of his drink. “So Bucky knew you when you were tiny, right? No wonder he’s so all Growley and Protective! Oh my _god_ that explains _so much_.” 

Steve pouted. Outright pouted, like a child with a stolen toy, bottom lip puffing out and everything. 

“Try overbearing and hypocritical. He acts like my goddamn mother, that’s what. And I can’t believe he chose Peggy over me! Me, his best friend in the whole goddamn world, or so I _thought_.” 

“Yeah. Peggy, she just--” He made a crashing sound, blowing his hands up like the bombs they all knew too well. “--throws a wrench in the whole thing. Speakin’a which, the hell is up with her and Stark? I mean, I for one, did not see that coming.”

“Peggy and Howard? What about them?” Steve rolled his lips between his teeth, popped them back out, whiskey on his tongue and a thousand things on his mind, but laying here on Sousa’s couch he was having a hell of a great time, and the very very best part was that he didn’t feel the _slightest_ fucking thing for Daniel. He couldn’t be gay, right? He was just having a good time, not one tiny urge to crawl off the couch and go kiss another boy and ruin his life. 

Like, none. That was great. That was so great. He couldn’t be gay! 

Although. Wait. 

He didn’t feel anything for Angie either. God...dammit. He didn’t feel anything for basically _any_ dame he knew that wasn’t Peggy so fuck, fuck that wasn’t gonna tell him anything and it wasn’t _fair_. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, why did his life have to be like this?

“You don't know?” Daniel was saying and Steve snorted because apparently, he didn’t know anything, didn’t get to know anything, wasn’t important enough to tell a single thing. “...they're dating.” 

“They're...what? Are you sure? I mean. I made that mistake once and it turned out fondue was just bread and cheese.”

Daniel’s head tipped sideways, comically far and Steve threw up a waving hand because that was a _long_ story.

“She's having fancy dinners with him. She's been sneaking around, I went’a see her, at the Griffith the other day to offer to walk her to work because I was in the neighborhood and her landlady freaked out, said she was still on probation from that guy waiting for her for seven hours in the lobby. Sure enough, it was Howard friggin’ Stark.”

Steve peaked his hands together, squinting at the ceiling again. The other morning, after he’d spent the night at her place he’d teased something about the whole world missing out cause she wasn’t interested in anyone and she’d made some offhand remark about how that wasn’t true and he’d just. Assumed she’d been talking about _him_. Their whole...unfinished thing.

“She did mention something about liking someone to me.” He knit his eyebrows, line deepening as he rolled the last couple of inches around in the whiskey bottle. “But _Howard_? I dunno.” 

“Who else could it be?” 

That was a really great question. Steve thought hard, pondering over all the smiles and laughs out of the pretty fire brunette--

Oh, oh _no_ , she and Bucky had gone on that date the other night and Buck hadn’t got back til _super_ late and then he’d asked her to sit in on his time at Azzano, although that really wasn’t something you’d tell a girlfriend, not one you wanted to keep, so. That didn’t make much sense, not to mention that they’d both laughed at the idea of it, that they really did genuinely seem like friends and. 

Well, there was the fact that she kept trying to convince Steve to like Jack. Fuck Jack Thompson, but sometimes she smiled soft at him and he returned it and they’d fought recently, he was pretty sure, and she knew all those private things about him and the time he’d served but wasn’t he way too much of an asshole for her?

On that note, Sousa sure as hell liked her and he was the opposite of an asshole. She’d gotten all flustered when Steve’d asked her about him, and she was always leaving him smiles and he stood up for her and apparently knew a lot of what she was getting up to, so. 

But then there was him, he could’a sworn they still had _something_. He didn’t even know what was going on between her and Howard, but they had been spending a weird amount of time together and.

Steve sighed heavily, taking another swig of the pointless whiskey, holding onto the burn in the few seconds before it faded right away. Why were there so many boys? Why?

“Wellll, between all of us at the office, and the amount of time she spends working?” Daniel blinked lethargically at him and Steve waved a hand in the air, wishing it could magically just make some of those boys disappear. “Any one of us, I suppose.” 

 

“Angie, I have no idea what I’d do without you.” Peggy took a grateful sip of her tea that pretty quickly turned into dumping the rest of it down her throat and Angie shot her a sympathetic look, grabbing the kettle and another tea packet again. 

“Oh, honey. You don’t ever have to worry about a time without me, alright?” She reached across the empty countertop to squeeze Peggy’s hand and Peggy wrapped her fingers tight around the slender ones, so much softer than all of the other reaching hands that were trying to drag her down in the dramatic depths of it all. And Angie’s eyes, they were just so kind and innocent and sweet, didn’t look at her with any ounce of all that stigmatism and projecting and. 

“Now, English, how bout you tell me what awful terrible thing had you runnin’ in here after hours with that _horrible_ look on your face? Y’know, my grandma tells me, you let yourself stress that much, you’re gonna lose all that clear pretty skin.” 

A twitch of a smile at the familiar scolding, the little compliment slipped in and Peggy pursed red lips, sliding her mug back to Angie for a guilty refill. 

“It’s James.” 

“Brooklyn? Didn’t you two go on a date the other night? He was crowing about it, said you two talked about some pretty important things.” She had a little smile on her face that Peggy was glad for, glad she didn’t have to explain it wasn’t _that_ kind of date, Ang knew them both too well by now for that. 

Some pretty important things.

Hah, right. Who do you choose. All of those boys, the endless boys and.

Right now, the only person Peggy even wanted to see was Angie. The unconditionally sweet, caring, untainted Angie Martinelli. 

Especially today.

“Not um. Quite as important as the discussion we had today. I…” She sucked in a breath, trying to shake it from her head like she somehow wouldn’t remember the words she’d carved down onto paper like she’d carved them into her skin instead. 

No, wait, that was Bucky who’d been carved up. 

“...I just really...wish he wasn’t fighting with Steve,” Peggy’s voice cracked over Steve’s name, tears caught in her throat and Angie was rushing around the counter before Peggy could take it back, could wipe a thumb under her eyes and plaster on a smile and wave off a hand. 

She would’ve protested maybe, if it’d been some other day, some other situation, but it wasn’t. 

She didn’t protest at all as Angie spun her stool and wrapped her arms around Peggy’s back, squeezing her tight as she closed her eyes, tipped her head against the bouncy curls and tried to convince herself not to tuck her face in Angie’s soft neck, she’d probably get lipstick all over her nice uniform. 

One hand rubbed up and down over her back and Peggy squeezed her eyes shut tighter, squeezed Angie back tighter, and tried to keep the tears from slipping down her nose. 

“Aw, sweetheart. You wanna tell me what happened?” The hand on her back didn’t stop rubbing and Peggy didn’t let go, didn’t wanna think about how long it’d been since she’d been given a proper hug. A real hug. 

As much as she’d love to spill every aching pain ripping up her soul to her sweet confidant, there was not one word of that Angie Martinelli ever ever needed to hear. 

And still, no matter how much she wished that Steve and Bucky weren’t fighting, she would never in a million years subject Steve to a single minute of that. Let it rip her apart instead, let her carry Bucky’s pain on her shoulders because she could, it was hard right now but she was strong enough to get through it. 

Steve would carry it in his heart instead, and he wouldn’t be strong enough, not at all. 

“I-I. A lot.” She sniffled, tipping her head into the hand Angie cupped on the back of her head. So much for her curls. Although she really really did not care, in the slightest, slightest bit at all. “James is going through...a really tough time. And he needs Steve, but they’re _fighting_ , and I don't know what's going on with them but James...I can't possibly imagine how he's _upright_ let alone working two intensive jobs and handling the mess of everything else and all this stress on top of it, I-- really can’t.” 

“It’s that bad?” Angie asked quietly and Peggy nodded, inhaling sharp and letting the gentle smell of Angie’s faded perfume wash over her. Okay. Okay, she’d taken comfort in this solace long enough, she had to strengthen up some time and if she didn’t now, she might not ever let go. 

It kinda felt like carving out another piece of her chest as she forced herself to let go, pull back, but Angie’s sweet hands slid around to her shoulders, tucking a curl back behind her ear, looking her over worriedly and she’d never realized, how many colors were in Angie’s bright bright eyes. 

“You know, we’ve got our first audition the day after tomorrow,” she added quietly and Peggy groaned, looking up at the ceiling with a pitying noise because apparently, Bucky wouldn’t be getting rid of that exhaustion and stress anytime soon.

She shook her head, dislodging another curl and Angie smiled, swirled it back into place again. 

“I don’t know how he takes it all,” she confessed and she was talking about a hell of a lot more than his busy schedule. 

“I think he’s quite a bit stronger than any of us realize,” Angie pointed out and Peggy could’ve laughed at that if it were funny at all, but she’d forgotten about the fucking _bastardized serum_ on top of everything. Stronger than any of us realize.

The punches never stopped coming. 

_It always ends in a fight._

Why hadn’t he gone back home? She’d been the one to fill out the form, the psychological torture release, the honorable discharge that would’ve sent him back to New York two years ago, before the bombs and the fire and the hell that came _after_ all that torture. 

But he’d stayed. He’d gone through _all of that_ , all of the things that made her positively sick to think about, and he’d chosen to stay and keep fucking fighting in the war anyways. 

For Steve. 

What kind of twisted, fucked up devotion was that? 

Would she have done the same thing for Steve Rogers? After everything Bucky’d been through? She wasn’t sure she’d’ve physically had the strength to tell him yes. She’d been through a hell of a lot in her life, but she’d never been….helpless. 

She’d never been helpless like that. 

Even when she’d had a noose around her neck and her toes dangling off a precipice, she hadn’t ever been helpless. She knew she’d get herself out, and she had, because there was always an out, a backdoor. 

Months on a torture table, strapped down and ripped out of your own mind, there was no more out anymore. There was no more backdoor. 

She just wanted out. She wanted out of this entire life, for just tonight, and the soft smile throwing off an apron and taking off the little hat, leading her for the door was offering just that. 

“I got a bottle of schnapps and that record you like, what do you say we drink and dance until morning?”

They got halfway through the bottle before Peggy was passed out against Angie’s shoulder, and by the time the record skipped she was curled around one of Angie’s pillows while Angie pressed their backs together and fell asleep to the sound of quiet jazz fading in the distance.

She had no idea what she’d do with Angie Martinelli. Absolutely no idea. 

 

It was a drinking night for all of them. Except that Bucky, who probably needed one the most, didn’t have a drinking buddy. 

He waited up for Steve. He waited up with teary, red eyes and a bottle tipped back against his lax mouth and Steve didn’t come home for a long long time. 

He waited and he drank and he wished and wished and wished Steve were here and he blubbered quiet apologies to the empty walls of Steve’s room because little did he know, Bucky would’ve chosen Peggy for that conversation no matter what year or fight of their lives they were in and Bucky just wanted Steve to come _home_.

He wished he could say he didn’t cry himself to sleep on the floor, but by the time Steve quietly slipped inside, locked the door behind him, Bucky was passed out and curled up on tear stains that still weren’t dry. 

The serum could do a lot of really neat things, but keeping his heart from stopping right in his chest was not one of them. Steve took one step into his bedroom, saw Bucky there on the floor, crumpled, shut red-rimmed-eyes, parted wet lips with the wood reflecting shine beneath his head and thought for the worst three seconds of his life, that Bucky was dead. 

The room slid by in a blur, the next thing he knew his knees were shocking life back into him, landing so hard he could feel the bruises radiating up his thighs, hands reaching to grab Bucky, roll him over and scream his fucking name only before he could touch he registered the inhale, the shuddering breath parting lips as the frozen body shifted, shakily taking in air and Steve’s fingertips froze inches away from Buck’s moving shoulder. 

Bucky wasn’t dead, those were the quiet sounds he made when he slept, he was sleeping in the middle of Steve’s floor, dried streaks tightening the skin next to his eyes, tracing paths all the way down to the shimmer on the floor. 

Those were tears. He’d cried himself to sleep. On Steve’s floor. 

Steve hadn’t--

He’d assumed Bucky didn’t need him, he’d thought. He’d thought. He’d thought Bucky wouldn’t even want him here, he hadn’t wanted him there earlier and he just. He didn’t. He didn’t know--

So his heart wasn’t stopped anymore, but it was broken right down the middle. 

Bucky’d taken care of him his whole life and the one night Bucky might have actually, honestly needed him, Steve hadn’t been there. He hadn’t known, he hadn’t--

But he was here now. It was his turn to take care of Bucky. 

A step over the curled body and familiar shoulders caved against his bicep as Steve wiggled an arm under Buck, rolled him enough to drag upright, other arm hooked under Bucky’s knees as he pushed off the ground, lifted Buck from his vigil on the floor. Bucky’s head lulled backwards, hanging off the edge of Steve’s arm like a limp, weak doll, neck chilled against skin. 

Fuck, Bucky was heavy. Steve was stumbling and Bucky weighed more than he'd counted on and if it were two months ago he’d just take another two steps and put Bucky in his bed, it was right there, but it wasn’t two months ago and he didn’t know if Bucky’d hate him more if he woke up in Steve’s bed with all of the implications that would have so. He hoisted Buck a little higher in his arms, turning sideways to fit them through the door as he carried Bucky to his own bedroom past the kitchen and across their little hallway. 

He’ll just carry him and tuck him in like that one time he’d been sick, just a little while and a lifetime ago. 

Except this time, Bucky didn’t stay peacefully, deeply asleep.

The groggy head rolling on his arm and lifting slightly could hardly be counted for awake, so Steve quietly shifted Bucky in his arms, rolling his shoulder forward to tuck Bucky’s head against his chest instead. 

A quiet pained noise, limbs shifting in Steve’s grip and Bucky protested weakly, eyes still shut as he wiggled in Steve’s arms. 

“Shh,” Steve soothed, rocking him slightly and carefully squeezing past the hall table outside Bucky’s door, making a face at the closed doorknob. After a moment’s debate and Bucky still shifting restlessly in his arms Steve didn’t have much of a choice but to take a step backwards, lifting his bare foot to try to turn the damn thing. 

It could’ve been the backwards tip, or the way he tightened his grip to make sure Buck was still secure or it could’ve been the half-awake state or the sudden kick of whatever he was dreaming about reaching the terrifying parts, but whatever it was, something snapped and the restless shifting in his arms was suddenly a hell of a lot more violent. 

“Hey, hey!” Steve had to duck to avoid a swinging lose arm, and that was all the warning he had before Bucky started full on thrashing. 

“Buck! Bucky, Bucky, it’s just me, it’s-- _Buck!_ ” His spine collided with a wall from the effort of trying to keep Bucky from falling out of his cradlehold when the limbs were flailing, kicking, head whipping back and forth but Steve couldn’t just put him _down_ \--

He shook Bucky, once, hard, hoping to wake him up from whatever hell of a nightmare he was going through and that was not the thing to do. 

“NO! N-no no no, leave me _alone_ , leave m-me alone, lea--”

“ _Bucky_!”

An elbow to his gut, heel slamming into his hip at the same time and Bucky was falling, colliding hard with the ground and scrambling away so fast, backwards on his hands and scooting feet and falling over himself, eyes wide open and glazed over as they’d been that day in Azzano, head shaking wildly back and forth as he stumbled. 

“Get it _off_ , get it off get it _off_ offoffoff--” One hand grabbing his wrist so tightly he was leaving bruises, staring down at his arm in horror as he yanked and kicked and backpedaled into the wall, shaking and screaming and “ _GET IT OFF!_ ”

There was a list of about three thousand things to worry about right now but the only thing on his mind was that Steve had no idea how strong Bucky’s bastardized serum was, and if he had the capacity to rip his own arm off, cause it sure as hell looked like that’s what he was aiming for. In the least he was gonna pop his bad shoulder out of socket again, which would be fucking _hell_.

Tile skidded underfoot as Steve rounded the corner, yanked open a cabinet so fast one of the hinges broke, grabbing the waterglass he always did but it wasn’t for Buck to drink, to soothe from hoarse yelling this time. 

Bucky’s eyes shot wide, choking gasp as the cold water splashed his face, a scream severed right in half and Steve had the briefest moment to wonder if their neighbors fucking hated them before Buck was sputtering, fingers uncurling from their bruising grip on his arm, recoiling like his skin was a hot stove.

Steve wasn’t thinking about sickness or kisses or Jack or anything, only Bucky, everything was Bucky and Steve dropped to the floor, the briefest pause ripping apart his chest at the damaged sounds breaking past wet lips, eyelashes blinking full of water that had nothing to do with the glass he’d just splashed in Bucky’s face. 

Everything was Bucky and he didn’t care about a single damn other thing in the world. Steve unfolded all the way, reaching forward with slow, steady hands and pulled his horrified shaking best friend into his arms. 

Buck melted against his chest, temple pressed hard to his pounding heart as Steve wrapped a strong arm around his bunched shoulders, other around Bucky’s waist, leaving his legs to curl over the side of Steve’s thigh as he held on tight, both of them held on so tight they were probably making more bruises. 

Bucky was still shuddering, trembling in his arms, leaking damp all over Steve’s shirt and there’d be a stiff salty tear stain tomorrow but he didn’t give a damn. Just Bucky. Only Bucky, who was exhausted, drained, hurt, wickedly hurt, hurting so bad he cried himself right back to sleep in Steve’s arms. 

But he’d take that every single night for the rest of his life over Bucky crying himself to sleep on Steve’s floor alone. 

Fuck, he was exhausted too. His ass was aching from the hard floor, his back was aching from carrying Bucky weight, aching more from keeping them propped upright as Bucky slept against his chest - eyes screwed shut too tight and hurt mouth parted, another spot of damp on his shirt. His stomach hurt, empty but for the whiskey and his head was pounding and he felt like he hadn’t slept in ages, ages, but Bucky deserved to sleep more than anything, anyone, and Steve would stay here all night if he thought that’s what Bucky needed. 

The shifting in his arms, little hurt noises and restless twisting legs said otherwise though, and as much as he hated himself for doing it, Steve scooped Bucky up again, they only had just a few feet, he just had to hold on for a few feet and he’d be in his safe comfortable bed and everything would be okay again.

His spine creaked in complaint, legs dying to stumble from the cramps but he had to be strong, fast, get Bucky into his bed before he panicked again. 

The second he laid Bucky out on the mattress the relief rushed over him so fast Steve nearly collapsed to his knees right there, but Buck was safe, sleeping, was gonna be okay--

“Don’ leave,” a hoarse voice croaked and Steve’s head shot up, wide eyes taking in the hand closed hard over his own. Bucky was curled on his side, pained crinkles next to his shut eyes, but he was squeezing Steve’s hand and Steve could never leave when he asked like that.

The chair screeched loudly as he dragged it over from the corner of the room, but Buck was already back sound asleep. It didn’t matter, he’d asked, Steve was staying. 

He fought the aches and cramps and pains and hurt and sat in the chair beside Bucky’s bed all night and didn’t get a single wink of sleep.

The alarm went off sometime around five thirty, making Bucky groan and roll over, Steve to look over at the clock dully, wonder if he was supposed to turn it off or wait for Buck to. He should probably go, actually. Or not. He still didn’t know. 

“Early shift at the diner?” Steve asked quietly and Bucky made a muffled sound, rolling back towards him and lifting the hand he’d placed upside down over his face. 

“Mm? Ughh. Yeah.” The croak in his voice wasn’t as severe as yesterday and Steve just nodded, sitting perfectly still and silent as Bucky dragged himself sluggishly out of bed. 

“Fuck, I. Gotta go get ready,” he mumbled, hand on Steve’s shoulder for the briefest moment as he passed but Steve was pretty sure it was just to get his balance, Steve might as well be the bedside table, then Bucky was stumbling for the bathroom and Steve slowly stood, shaking out both legs like that would change a thing about the way they felt. 

The empty glass was still in the hallway and he scooped it up, sat it in the kitchen sink. Pulled another from the broken cabinet to get himself a drink. 

Bucky came out of the bathroom in the half of his diner uniform he wore home, looking surprisingly put together and Steve stared down at the counter for a moment wondering how shitty he looked in comparison before clearing his throat and lifting his aching head.

“Can I come with you?” he asked tentatively and Bucky paused in the hallway. 

“Sure,” he replied, quiet, and Steve nodded, sat down the glass and headed straight for the bathroom. 

“Can you wait ten for me to get ready?”

“Yeah.” 

To both of their mild dismay, no one protested to Steve sitting in a booth while they prepared the meals for that morning. Angie swept in just before seven, big eyes widening in surprise as she saw him sitting dejectedly there, spinning a napkin slowly under one slightly trembling fingertip. 

“USA, hey,” she greeted, starting across the checkered floors and Steve looked up, blinking a couple times to focus in on the familiar face, familiar scolding voice as Angie walked over, “You look exhausted!” 

Steve offered her a smile that even he couldn’t pretend wasn’t weak. He was sitting here numb and half delirious from the lack of sleep, couldn’t remember pulling an all-nighter before or after the war, and long shifts in dark forest full of adrenaline and fire didn’t count anyways.

“Alright, honey.” Martinelli plopped down on the opposite side of the booth, lips pursing as she tipped her head and pinned him against the cushion with that look. “Tell your favorite waitress what's got you lookin’ like a third day old ham sandwich that's been stepped on after a long day baking in a trashcan. Is it Brooklyn?”

“I haven't even been to Brooklyn for years,” Steve muttered, wiping a hand over his face. “You mean Bucky? It's uh...” 

He was sick of hiding. Sick of the grim smiles and the numb nodding and. “Yeah, actually. It is.” 

“Oh, Steve.” All soft sympathy as she reached over the table and Steve let Angie wrap her fingers up in his own. “Is there anything I can do?” 

“I just.” Steve sucked in a breath, breaking reverie to look away from the table, catching a glimpse of Bucky in the kitchen, the voice he’d been straining to hear all morning. He wasn’t gonna cry. His eyes were burning, felt like he hadn’t closed them for hours and hours but he wasn’t gonna cry and. “I'm in way over my head, Ang and I don't know what-- what I'm supposed to--” 

“Okay, honey, shh shh. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna go get you a milkshake. Lemon, it makes you happy from just the smell alone, I promise, okay? You got work this morning?” 

Steve nodded miserably and Angie nodded definitely back. 

“I'll call Peg, have her walk you over.” 

“Angie, really, that's not necessary,” Steve started, looking up at her from the booth as she popped to her feet and he meant it, he wasn’t gonna let them make this about him just cause he hadn't gotten sleep. 

“No, it is. It really is.” She swooped down to kiss his temple, wiping the mark with her handkerchief as she stood back up then she was shouting the order of a milkshake at the kitchen and high heels were striding right back out the door for the phone down the block. 

Peggy showed up sometime after the milkshake he didn’t drink and Steve was stuck staring at the table, didn't even notice until she took his hand, making his head snap up as he jumped, dark under the red-rimmed, watery blue eyes. 

“Are you with me?” Peggy asked quietly, and this was so much worse than Angie’d even described on the phone. This could barely fall under the _tired_ category, those eyes were so haunted it was more like that night they all went dancing and Steve practically disassociated for an hour. 

Drifting, half on the planet and half in the clouds, eyes glazed over but that didn’t keep the heavy head from dipping and lifting lethargically at her question.

Peggy sucked in a breath, nodded to herself once and stood, taking Steve by the arm to pull him up out of the booth. He lifted to his feet easy enough, gripping her arm tight as he stepped onto solid ground and fuck, that was gonna bruise. Peggy grit her teeth and psyched herself up to guiding Steve all the way to the SSR, there were worse things and he looked like he might drift off into space if someone didn’t hold him down to earth. 

Bloody hell, did he have to hold _that_ tight though?

Before she could pry off the impossibly gripping fingers, a strong hand suddenly wrapped around the tired shoulders from behind. 

“I got him,” Bucky’s lilted voice interjected and the last time she’d heard that voice, it’d been painting nightmares. 

Her arm was smarting from where Steve'd just let go, but Bucky had a double shift and she wasn’t going to let him put taking care of Steve on the list too, some things were more important, like maybe his own goddamn health and sanity. 

“I can take him, James.” She moved to wrap an arm around Steve’s waist, only he side stepped them both around her before she could. 

“I've got him,” Bucky repeated, squeezing Steve’s shoulders as he walked him for the door, tipping over into the impossibly small space between their faces, whispering something in his ear that wasn’t for her to hear. 

“You know you didn’t have to stay up all night, pal. Look, here I am, still proppin’ you up even now, huh, Stevie? Good thing I’ve been workin’ out, you're a hell of a lot heavier than that punk kid I knew.” 

A flat palm out in front of them to push open the revolving door, he’d walk Steve all the way to his desk if he let him. 

He didn’t. 

Steve shoved him off lamely at the threshold, wiping a hand over his red eyes and shaking free of the hand Bucky put right back on his shoulder. 

“I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm just tired.” It sounded more like _dead_ , but the look Steve gave him was honest - Steve was always honest, or so he thought, although he supposed keeping certain bits of information hidden away wasn’t lying, not really, and that was the stupid fucking loophole he’d used before and it wasn’t _fair_ , how could Bucky be mad at him when Steve had spent the entire night up at his bedside?

“Are _you_ okay?” Steve pressed quietly, looking Bucky in the eyes. With their dress shoes they were practically the same height, blinking worriedly at his best friend. Both of them were, Steve was a little out of it and Bucky had cried himself to sleep and Steve just wanted to take Bucky’s face in his hands, the way he had after he’d gotten shot. Wanted to hold him close and still and promise those crystal eyes a thousand things but he couldn’t cup Bucky’s face in his hands right now, they were in broad daylight in public and a lot had changed since then, Buck might hate him for it anyways. 

But he’d asked so soft and sincere Bucky couldn’t peel up a mask in time, couldn’t plaster on something fake when they were standing this goddamn close. He gave Steve the only honest smile he had in him and he knew it was as tired as Steve’s weary eyes looked. 

“I'm just fine. I'll be into the office this afternoon, okay? I'll see you then. Want me to bring you pie?” 

“Sure,” Steve agreed lightly and Peggy materialized just in time, wrapping a congenial arm around his waist. 

“We’ll see you then, James.” She didn't look at him, stared straight ahead and didn't so much as glance behind as she pulled Rogers onto the sidewalk. She hadn’t been able to meet those crystal eyes since he’d told her. 

All of those things Zola did to him. It wasn't like she didn't have an idea, wasn’t like she hadn’t read reports just as bad for other soldiers, she just. 

To him, to bright Bucky who just a few nights ago was laughing and dipping her on a dance floor. That was the man they'd tortured and shot up with endless drugs and tried to shape into this obedient mumbling senseless thing--

It should’ve helped her case. In theory, she should be elated she got the chance to be the one person with the insider information on Bucky’s life. Even for just the case, for his own safety alone. 

But honestly she just wanted to be sick. 

 

That’s all Steve was feeling too. 

 

~*~*~

 

“Sergeant Barnes, can you come take a look at this?” Sousa indicated a hand at a taped up investigation board on the other side of the room and Bucky slid off the edge of his temporary desk, starting down the aisle and trailing his fingers along the corner of Steve’s desk. Blue eyes flicked up to watch but Bucky kept walking, all the way to the front where Daniel was waiting, shaking his head once with a little smile at the patient agent. 

“I thought I told you to call me Bucky.” 

“Aren’t things a little different at the office?” Daniel knit his eyebrows, indicating the bustling bullpen around them and Bucky shrugged a shoulder, covering the wince just quickly enough that Sousa didn’t notice. 

“I’m not an SSR Agent. You can call me Bucky. So what’s up with the board?”

“It’s from a piece of the case. We followed a lead that took us straight to this top secret warehouse overseas, in Russia,” Daniel detailed the mission a little more and Bucky kept a careful blank face, pretending he didn’t already know more about that particular mission than Sousa did. 

He’d bet anything no one in this entire office knew Steve had been shot in the back on that mission, that the Commandos had easily filled Bucky in on the details without thinking twice, and that was _after_ he’d gotten the abridged version from Rogers. He’d even heard something about a metal contraption Steve was taking to Stark’s lab to get analyzed, which looking at the board, seemed to basically be the focus. 

That, and some strange drawings, diagrams thumbtacked up next to photographs of a metal glove-looking contraption. 

“...and basically, Stark gave us the constituent makeup for the metal glove, although he said he couldn’t tell anything about the metals detailed in the grafts.” 

“Grafts?” He tipped a head at the board, thumb over a thumbtack and Sousa nodded, so Bucky plucked the tack out and studied the diagram closer. 

That was. 

Really familiar.

It was a sketch of the human skeleton, only certain bones were shaded over dark, a zoomed sketch at the bottom of the page detailing an up-close view of a shaded bone, a strange metal-looking casing over most of it.

“You called this a graft?”

“Yeah, it looks like they were studying reinforcing bone with metal. At least, that’s one theory. Another is just that it’s an idealization, to show the weak spots in the skeleton that should be covered with metal on the _outside_. Personally, I think the later makes more sense, based on the glove Rogers found.” 

“That metal thing?” Bucky glanced up from the sheet to point at a photograph on the wall. “That doesn’t exactly look like a glove to me.” He pinned the diagram of the skeleton back up, scanning down the paper next to it, that was mostly Russian shipment numbers that didn’t look to mean much of anything else.

Back to the photograph of the weird metal thing again, tapping once on the sharp skeleton fingers and the circular metal cuff glinting through the photo. “Do you guys still have it?”

“The scientists do, it’s in the basement. You want me to get it for you?”

“I can get it, it’s no problem.” Bucky gave Sousa a smile, already starting around the whiteboard before Daniel held up a hand and stopped him. 

“Barnes-- Bucky. Just because I’ve got a crutch doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be easy on me, alright? I mean, I’m not little Steve or anything.” He gave a small, understanding smile with it and Bucky blinked owlishly. 

“I...didn’t ever think you were. I just don’t tend to let people get things for me when there’s no good reason--”

“Barnes, you have a call on line three!” Peggy shouted from the back of the room and Daniel’s smile widened, shrugging up a shoulder as took a hobbling step for the elevator. 

“Good reason now!”

“You timed that, didn’t you!” Bucky called after him and Sousa waved cheerily over his shoulder. A huff and he let it go, headed in the opposite direction to go grab the telephone off his desk. 

Steve was already holding out his own by the time Bucky got halfway down the middle aisle. 

“Thanks,” he muttered quietly and Steve nodded quieter, rolling his chair away as Bucky took the phone and propped carefully on the cleared edge of Steve’s desk. Steve paid him no mind, flipping open a file and staring at the words like they were in a different language. It was ingrained curiosity that had Bucky glancing over and well, turned out the file was in a different language, but it was French, a language Steve clearly knew, so there was no reason he was staring at it blankly like it was Russian instead. 

Except that he hadn’t slept in his own bed for like. A week, went straight from Thanksgiving at the Jones to Peggy’s room in solace and then he hadn’t slept at all last night and. 

Bucky sucked in a breath, tipping sideways to press a button on Steve’s receiver and lifted the black phone to his ear,

“Sergeant Barnes.” 

“Buckyyy, heyy, took you long enough,” a familiar voice parroted and Bucky raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Howa--? uh. How are you doing?” He stopped himself just in time from saying the incredulous name, he had no idea why Stark was calling him at the SSR or how he even knew Bucky worked here now but he highly doubted all these government agents approved of taking time out of precious work hours to talk to their local celebrity. 

“Just fine. Well, if you can call being eaten alive by this project fine. I have a bit of a favor to ask, I wish I could say it was nothing but it's unfortunately quite crucial--”

“Yes, okay. What is it?” He glanced around the bullpen but no one seemed to be paying attention, even Steve looked vaguely more engrossed in the French documents. 

“Could you stop by the lab later? I have some things I’d like to...discuss.”

He could've just outright said no, but the last two times he'd seen Howard he'd been suspicious as hell and no one was paying attention to his phone call anyways, might as well stop bullshitting in circles. 

“Is this about that mysterious case you and Peggy have been working?”

Carter’s head snapped up at her name and he gave her a little finger wave for it. Brown eyes cut away again and suddenly Peggy was very busy with her work, rolling her chair and picking up the phone on her desk, punching a button or two, discussing something quietly with someone named Rose. 

Bucky watched her in his peripherals, which was how he missed the suddenly alarmed look on Steve frozen face.

“In a way. But it’s important. Is there sometime today you’re free?” Stark sounded weird, upset almost and much too desperate for a man who had everything. 

“No. Uh, today’s really not good. But I can try for sometime later this week? If that’s fine?” The last thing he had energy or time for today was Howard Stark’s lab - or Howard Stark in general, which he didn't think was that unreasonable, waiting for an answer as he twirled the phone cord in his hand. Silence answered back. “Howard? Hello? Howard?” 

He lifted the phone away from his ear, glancing over it and when he lifted it back, the only thing he could hear was this disconnected buzzing sound. Huh. The call had been cut. Weird. 

Stark kinda had a record with failing technology, though so. 

Still. He shot Peggy an odd look but she was snacking innocently on something at her desk and okay, whatever. Probably nothing. 

“Uh, thanks for letting me borrow your phone,” Bucky offered, sliding off the edge of Steve’s desk. 

“You're welcome,” Steve replied quietly, not looking up from whatever he was writing as Bucky placed the phone back in its cradle. 

Well. Things could be worse. 

He paced back down the aisle, peering around the investigation board for Sousa. Jeez, he was taking forever. He supposed he could take the extra time to glance over the rest of the documents pinned to the board, but even looking at the two had made his stomach all tight and knotted up. 

So head for the elevators to go find Sousa it was. 

 

“Ah, how the mighty have fallen. What could you possibly need on the basement floor? You some kinda secret scientist I didn't know about? Keep your lab coat all rolled up and tucked away in that crutch?” 

“Very funny,” Daniel pointed out, tipping his shoulder to lean against the elevator wall. “Why in hell are you going down there?” 

“File room. Found something that might tie to another case a couple years back.” Jack gave him a pretty smile, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the opposite wall. “See? Real investigative work.” 

“Yeah, uh huh. I'll bet you a quarter you get lost the second you step in that room.” 

“Hey! It can't be that hard, it's all chronological order.” 

“Exactly,” he shot back and Jack smiled wide, placing a hand over his chest in faked offense. 

“I'm hurt. You that unconvinced of my abilities?” 

“What abilities?” 

“Ouch, you're just pullin’ all the punches today. Almost on an even playing ground, although you've still got a downhill slope disadvantage with the leg.” 

“You are the most gentle person I know,” Daniel told him and Jack tipped his pretty blonde head with a smile. 

The elevator slid to its stop underground, a jolt that had them both straightening as the metal doors rolled open. 

“Y’know, Jack, there's no shame in askin’ for help. You get lost in all those big words--”

“Oh shut up Sousa, like you can navigate that shit storm of a room any better than I can.” 

“I probably _can_.”

Thompson shot him a playful glare and Daniel shook his head, hobbling out of the elevator, careful not to get his crutch stuck in the gap. 

“Well, either way, I'm not gonna drag you into that tiny little dark room with barely enough room for both our shoulders--”

“I wouldn't mind,” Sousa interrupted and Jack faltered a step, glancing behind them at the empty hallway. 

“I uh. The file room’s actually. In the other direction...”

“I know,” Sousa offered him a little smile and kept crutching down the hallway. “You could come with me, to go get that glove from the scientists then I could go with you, help you find that file. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, right?” 

“Me, go in there with the scientists? No thank you.” 

“Aw, c’mon, Thompson. They ain't half bad. You scared they’re smarter than you or somethin’? I mean, if all that intelligence and technology makes you nervous--” 

“No! Of course not. You know what, _fine_ , I will come with you, dammit, then you're gonna help me with that file.” Jack marched ahead, grabbing the door to the lab all aggressively and swinging it open, waving Daniel impatiently through. 

Sousa most definitely didn't smile victoriously to himself the entire time Jack hunted down the metal glove for him. And it was entirely only about the work and that glove, of course. 

 

Bucky jammed the elevator button with his thumb, foot tapping impatiently as he waited, and waited, and waited, until finally the metal doors slid open. 

Oh, well, there was Sousa. And Thompson. 

Smiling at each other and laughing, leaning on one wall of the elevator together, faces lit up bright with crinkles by Sousa’s eyes and that rare, open wide smile in Jack’s. 

The second the doors slid open, the second they saw someone standing there both of the smiles disappeared in an instant, cut on a glass edge, straightening up with quick hands fixing ties and grabbing crutches, taming down into twin blank faces for the three seconds before either of them realized who it was standing there.

“Oh! Brook, hey! How's it goin’ for the world’s favorite waiter?” It was affectionate and smiley and Bucky beamed right back at him as Jack practically lept out of the elevator, leaving Sousa in the proverbial dust to clap a congenial hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

“Goin’ pretty great.” Bucky lifted his chin, eyes narrowed just a bit under the smile as Jack puffed up a little and they did the whole macho standoff greeting thing Daniel had never understood. “I gotta say, you've got a hell of a team here.”

It was the perfect opening to step forward and join the conversation but the moment Sousa opened his mouth to comment, Jack was rocking Bucky’s shoulder a bit, speaking right over the millisecond silence before he could. 

“Don't I know it.” His grip shifted, clapping the back of Bucky’s gray suit, leaning in a little closer - and wow, they couldn’t get much closer than that - as the cheery voice lifted again like Bucky Barnes was the most important person in the entire world. “Hey, I was gonna ask you. You know that bar we went to, the one with the Italian bartender?” 

The elevator door started to slide shut and he quickly shot out his crutch, knocking it back open before it could send him back down to the basement. 

Well, maybe he could retrieve his stomach that’d dropped all the way back down there.

“Was that the one...who spent an hour talking about that dame he'd been seeing in the war?” There were crinkles next to Bucky’s eyes as he smiled, tipped his head at Jack, voice all distant and reminiscing and Jack beamed so goddamn wide Daniel felt his stomach bury itself a little deeper in that basement concrete a million floors below them. 

“Yeah! That’s the one. You wouldn't _believe_ what I saw this morning on my commute--”

Sousa sucked in a breath and looked down at the floor, carefully lifting himself out of the elevator before it damn right closed on him again. 

He’d never gotten the memo that Thompson and Barnes were such damn good friends. Hell, if Bucky was girl, they’d look damn great together, matching smiles and the whole blonde-brunette thing they had going. Just like Bucky and Steve did, so maybe that’s where the weird familiarity was, the red strings between them just paralleled, the way those blue eyes lit up as Bucky spoke, hands in the air to explain while Jack looked positively damn enchanted. 

Yeah, he was fine over here, thanks guys for asking. It should be a good thing, really, that Jack and Bucky got along so well, everyone in this damn office was fucking fighting all the time, it should be a relief to have two of his friends be friends with each other, no glares or punches or anything thrown between them. 

It wasn’t a relief, it was absolutely nothing like a relief and he couldn’t get rid of the twisting pain in his chest watching Jack smile at Bucky like that and call him that stupid nickname and it was stupid, what the _hell_ did he have to be jealous of? 

Didn’t stop his stupid jealous mouth from opening up to interrupt.

“I've got the metal glove you wanted,” he interjected and Bucky glanced over his shoulder, gave him the quickest flash of a nod, “Great, thanks.” 

Then he was turning right back to Thompson, sharp jawlines and broad chest muscles as they laughed and Daniel wasn’t sulking, he wasn’t, he just had no damn reason to be jealous and he couldn’t shake that that was _exactly_ what he was feeling. 

Nothing he could do about it. Okay. Whatever. Let them talk and laugh with each other, he was gonna go attempt to get some damn work done.

“I’ll be in the bullpen whenever you’re ready,” he interrupted again, a little sharp maybe but neither of them noticed, chattering away as he crutched away and Sousa was sulking too much to turn around, to see the way Jack suddenly looked away from Barnes, stared at his retreating back for as long as the blue eyes could get away with, then Brook was saying something and he diverted back to the shining face, smile just a bit harder to force that time. 

 

Peggy called Howard back the _millisecond_ Bucky was out of earshot. 

She hadn’t been returning his calls all day - told Rose to ignore all six of them - because she knew exactly what he wanted to talk about and they’d discussed it yesterday morning and her opinion had only grown significantly stronger on the topic. 

Yesterday, when he’d pestered her with, “Hey, you told Bucky at dinner, right? That’s why you two were dancing, right? You did tell him already.” 

She’d hissed right back at him, “No, I _can’t._ ” 

He hadn’t taken that too well. Went off on some rant about how the most important part of science was sharing the discoveries to make a better world or something and how they couldn’t even discover more if they didn’t share what they’d found and she’d hung up on him. 

That was before Bucky’d told her about Azzano. 

See, now that she knew all the nasty shit they’d done to him, on top of the fact that he had this bastardized serum in his veins, she really couldn’t say she was inclined to corner him somewhere and tell him they’d fucked with him even more than he’d known. 

That it wasn’t over. 

That the tears he’d wiped away with shaking hands yesterday, the clenched fists and broken sounds as he tried to choke out more of what’d happened, that was just the beginning, because they’d put something in him that was permanent, and it wasn’t over, he didn't get to whisper that to himself the way he had every fucking three minutes. 

_It's over, it's in the past, he can't touch you ever again._

No, it was worse than that, some fucked up drug Zola had created was still inside Bucky, he didn't get to chant _he can't ever touch you again_ when the product of his hands would forever run through Bucky's veins.

How was she supposed to possibly fucking tell him that his nightmare had barely begun? That there was a chance they wanted him back? If he didn’t know, if he honestly didn’t know about the serum, about the shit they’d shoved in him that he’d never be able to scrub out, stitch up, heal over like all those scars he’d ripped open yesterday, how was she supposed to be the one to break that fucking news? 

Odds are she’d break him right with it. 

So yeah, she’d ignored all of Howard’s calls about the damn experiment. 

Which apparently meant he was gonna go right to the source and just call Bucky instead. 

She wouldn’t’ve put it past him to tell Barnes over the goddamn phone, so she’d had Rose end the call, connect her right through to Howard instead, and now she was going to chew his stupid genius little ear off. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t get the chance because the moment the line connected, Howard was already talking.

“Peggy, he deserves to know. I will tell him if you don’t.”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” she hissed back and Steve glanced over from his desk. 

She cupped a hand around the phone, wheeling her chair and spinning it so her back was to the soft, tired blue eyes. 

“God help me, if you don’t listen to exactly what I have to say right now, I will find the most painful, awful way for you to pay.” 

“Peggy, c’mon--”

“ _Listen_. Too much is happening right now. I understand his rights, I understand that this secret’s too big and too many people already know about it, but with everything going on, this is the last thing Bucky needs. _Trust me_ , Howard. I know him, and now is not the time to drop this in his lap!” 

“Carter, I am fully aware you don’t think he’ll react well, but it’s not up to you. You can’t hide behind this forever, I’m not going to let you t--” 

“I can do exactly as I damn well please, thank you Howard.” She slammed the phone loud enough in the receiver to make half the agents in the room jump, although thankfully only a few turned their heads. One of them being Daniel Sousa, who was making his way towards his desk, looking rather bitter himself. 

“Trouble in paradise?” He sat the metal contraption from Russia down on his desk, giving her a strangely cold glance. 

She returned it with an odd look. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Daniel look that upset. 

It only took a few seconds before the iciness melted, a heavy sigh as the tense shoulders dropped, going straight from pissed to forlorn.

“It’s okay, Carter, I already know.”

“Know…?” She rolled a confused hand for him to continue because she had no goddamn idea what he was talking about.

“That you’re...you know.” Another rolling hand and she pressed her lips together, red sticking slightly as one eyebrow cocked. Sousa gave her the saddest little tight smile in return. “Y’know, why you still haven’t come out to drinks with me.”

Wait. What the hell did he think he knew? 

That she wasn’t interested? In what, in him? In the entire exasperating, painstakingly dramatic male population? How the hell would he know a single damn thing about Angie Martinelli--

Wait, _fuck_ , what was that?

When did this turn into.

What was--

“What are you talking about?” she finally burst out and he looked rather shocked too, waving an indication at the phone.

“That you and Stark are. Together.” 

_Ohh_. Oh oh oh. Oh, that made so much sense. Bucky’d said something about that, hadn’t he? And Sousa had been acting weird as hell around her and it’d kinda been heartbreaking because he’d been her only friend and ally in this place for awhile and she still was quite fond of him but she’d shoved their unknown problems aside in the face of all the rest of this drama but goodness, that made so much sense.

“I am no such thing,” she corrected, a little haughtily, and the look on Daniel’s face probably matched the one she’d been wearing a moment ago. 

“Wait. What?”

“I’m not dating Howard Stark. Nor am I ever planning to do so.”

“You’re…” The breath of relief was so obvious she was pretty sure the building across the street caught all the implications and lingering emotions. 

Was Daniel...jealous? Of her dating Howard Stark? Did that mean he was...interested? In her? 

She was still hanging on to the ellipsis but Daniel hadn’t breathed after that rush of air, blinking at her like he was waiting for confirmation one more time, couldn’t quite believe it and she wasn’t going to analyze this, she wasn’t.

“Fortunately, I’m quite single,” she pointed out helpfully instead. 

“Well, uh.” A little smiling shake of his head and Daniel swung a step closer, then two, right at the edge of her desk as she blinked up with big eyes at the nervous lip bite, the slightest touch of confidence as Sousa pushed his good luck just a little. “So, then, I guess you really have been too busy to go out for drinks?”

The curve on her mouth, for once, didn’t feel plastered in the least. 

“Unfortunately, yes. I wouldn’t _lie_ to you, Daniel. I respect you far too much for that.”

Sousa dipped his head, smile curving up hard enough to dimple his cheeks, brown eyes so soft and sincere under the swoop of dark hair.

“I respect you too, Peggy.”

It was her turn to duck her head, rolling in her lips again, fighting the urge to beam or shout victoriously or something. It took a few moments to gather herself enough to glance back up, one eyebrow cocked as she tipped her head in the amusement she didn’t mean.

“It’s good to know there’s somebody who does.” 

A warm heavy hand placed carefully on her shoulder, radiating the lightest pressure through the sleeve of her dress, gentle as if she were a porcelain doll. 

“You can always count on me for that.” Low, private, it could’ve been whispered just inches from her ear when he said it like that and Peggy breathed in between parted lips, blinking up at the flicker in those dark eyes. 

She wasn’t really...doubting, per say, at this moment in time she was going to hold a fairly clear and pretty steady yes, Daniel was interested, Daniel seemed _quite_ interested, interested enough he was looking at her like he might. Kiss her. 

What a scandal that would be. Sousa leaning down and kissing her right here, in front of everyone and their mother, and maybe that’s really not what that look meant but the last time someone had given her that look it’d been Steve and he had swooped down, pecked her nervously on the cheek - barely, he’d been quite close to the bright red lips she wanted to plant on him but it just wasn’t. It just wasn’t right for that moment, and it wouldn’t be in this moment now, but that didn’t mean her heart was pounding any less quickly. 

Actually, she was fairly sure it was about to beat out of her chest and skip across the floor. 

Dramatic, how dramatic could she be, she was starting to think the way those drama queen boys did--

A laugh on the other side of the room caught everyone’s attention, Thompson and Barnes strolling into view in perfect companionship, speak of the damn devils. 

Bucky’d accused her, just a few days ago, of toying with the hearts of half the SSR agents in this bullpen right now, if Howard and Angie were here they’d have a complete set of _everyone_. 

She swallowed tightly, looking away and trying not to soak in the heat of Daniel’s hand on her shoulder. 

“I um. That’s very good to know. Thank you,” she managed, reaching out to straighten a stack of files on her desk, making Sousa’s hand fall away but he gave her the happiest little smile as he started back for his desk and past, all the way for the board in the front of the room where Jack and Bucky were chatting and rearranging papers and great heaven above, her heart was pounding. 

Why did everything have to happen all at once? Couldn’t she have just one moment--

Steve stalked past her desk so fast the wind knocked half her papers into her lap and Peggy’s gaze snapped up sharply, to where Steve was shoving open Chief Duley’s door with a barely attempted rapping knock. 

The only good thing about her desk being the closest to Duley’s door was that she could hear bits and pieces of things sometimes, like this dramatic ass moment right now. 

“Can I go on a smoke break?” Steve asked, voice hoarse and dark still under his eyes, shoulders impossibly stiff, fingertips trembling just enough she was fairly sure he hadn’t noticed yet. 

And how Chief Duley hadn’t noticed that Steve had never smoked a day in his life, she had no idea, but for some reason he just waved an impatient hand and barked off an, “I’m not your goddamn mother, go, but have some goddamn courtesy and knock next time.” 

Bucky noticed, Bucky sure as hell noticed that Steve asked for a smoke break because suddenly the laughter had all cut instantly short up front and the crystal eyes were staring right at Steve’s stiff shoulders as he shoved his hands in his pockets and just about hugged the wall on his way for the door. 

Peggy studied the distance between Duley’s door and Barnes, debating whether it was usual or Serum to have overheard the hushed request over all the noise. 

Either way, Bucky heard it, and it was hard to tell who was more distraught, the boy running outside for a gasp of fresh air, not so much as a stub in his pocket, or the one staring after him with nothing but holes in his chest. 

 

 

“I just can’t _place_ it.” A frustrated noise and Bucky pinned the diagram back to the board before he drove himself mad trying to remember why the fuck that piece of paper was so damn familiar. 

“And you’re sure you’ve never seen the glove before?”

“Pretty sure, but. I dunno, I mean, I can tell something’s missing from it, but that’s all I got. Some help I am, I was right there in the thick of it and I can’t even figure out why one of the projects tied to him’s so damn familiar.” A self-deprecating huff and Jack offered a tight sound of pity. 

“Maybe...the metal is familiar because you have some of the grafts?” Sousa tried and Bucky’s eyes went wide.

“ _Me_? Why the hell would I?”

“You were in Zola’s lab. The longest, out of anyone we’ve got documentation on.” 

“Still. I don’t...I mean, I would’ve remembered if they’d cut open my arms to solder metal to my bones, y’know?” 

Jack lifted a hand from the arms crossed over his chest, propped up on a desk as he waved at the board. “Maybe there’s another way of attaching the metal.” 

“What, shoot it out through needles? There’s no way. Besides, I’ve been on an operating table since, and no one said a damn thing about metal anything.” 

“Did you get a full body X-ray? And, well. You never know how far this thing reaches.” 

“You don't think the operation could've moved to the United States,” Bucky said slowly and Jack lifted a shoulder.

“I don't know what I think, but I know if I were you I’d like to find out.” 

“It couldn’t hurt to get it checked out,” Sousa added on and Bucky shook his head once, furrowing his eyebrows at the tacked up diagrams. 

“It’s one hell of a long shot. I mean, you found all this stuff in Russia. I’ve never even been to Russia in my life. I may know about Zola, but it wasn’t like he spent a month and a half telling me all his secret evil plans.”

Although, well. There’d been enough monologues and evil planning and plans for _him_ in there to haunt every closed eye for the rest of his goddamn life.

“Anything’s worth a try at this point though, right?”

“...yeah, I mean. I guess. I’ll go, get an X-Ray if you guys think it’s a good idea, I just. Only if you’re both convinced, because I really _really_ don’t like doctors, and I’m not lookin’ to visit one for no damn reason.”

Nobody met anybody’s eyes but that was the easiest way to do this, to talk about all this. Daniel had his leg and Bucky had his head and he was sure Jack had something too, they’d all fought in the same war, they all knew hell and back and at this point it was simply doing everything they could not to go back to that hell. 

“I'll go with you,” Sousa offered, lifting a shoulder casually while two sets of blue eyes turned to him curiously. “I mean, I still have to go to physical therapy for my leg, I’m pretty damn used to the doctor’s. Just...make the appointment and let me know.”

“You’d do that for me?” 

Daniel looked away, shifting on his crutch, leaving Bucky’s half-desperate tone to echo in the white noise of the rest of the bullpen.

“Uh...yeah. It’s really no problem,” he insisted again, one hand running through dark strands on the back of his head and Bucky nodded once, twice, looked at them both and back at the board again. 

“Maybe we'll decipher this thing after all.” 

 

She tried to patch things up with Jack. Apologize. 

She’d only ever meant to listen, she knew how hurt he was, how well he hid it under that pure asshole facade that nowadays, was reserved specifically for her and Steve, apparently. 

Thompson just kept walking, didn’t so much as turn around as he bit the pissed, dismissive,

“Leave me alone.” 

She tried. She was trying, really hard, at all of this, but Jack Thompson was impossible.

 

It wasn’t progress that they didn’t glare at each other when they were both called into Duley’s office, because they were both refusing to so much as look at each other and Steve highly doubted he'd be getting over that anytime soon, to even move onto the glaring they used to do. 

Also highly doubted Thompson was getting over it anytime soon either.

“Rogers, Thompson. There’s this guy, old friend of mine from back in the day. He spent some time in Russia during the war, said he has an idea of a couple things that were going on. I need you both to investigate his statements, see if any bit of it is worth a damn.” 

“Yes sir,” Steve replied easily, automatically, ~~drained~~ and Thompson bristled next to him. 

“Cut the crap, Rogers, I ain’t your CO,” Duley shot back and now Thompson was glowing, tipping his head all victoriously. 

God, this was the last place on earth he wanted to be right now.

Fuck this entire fucking situation. He was so fucking sick of keeping his eyes open, he just wanted to sleep, he wanted to curl up on a damn chair and sleep until everything was okay again and he never had to look at Jack Thompson’s stupid pretty face again.

“He’s gonna be at the bar Buster’s around six--”

“Wait, you mean you don’t already have his statement?” Thompson interrupted and at least the triumphant puffed up chest disappeared the second Chief glared at him. 

“No, I don’t, that’s why I have you two blondes strollin’ in there to get it.” 

And that’s when it finally hit Steve. Kinda like a freight train.

“ _Together_?”

“The hell did you think I meant? Handing the two of you separate files with the same words copied into both of 'em just to get two different opinions? No, dimwits, you’re going to do your _jobs_ , and go get some actual work done. You both will go to the bar, sit by the man, and get his damn statement. Together.”

“No,” Jack replied. 

Simply put, but Steve could begrudgingly admit, extremely accurate. 

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not going on some hack recon mission with Rogers. I have a senior position in this office--”

“Agent Thompson, you have the exact position in this office that I tell you to, and today, that’s going to that bar, sitting by that man, and getting his damn statement with Rogers. Do I need to say it another time, or would you like to keep the badge I so graciously have put on your chest?”

Jack sucked in a breath, silence settling for just a moment and Steve could hear the gears turning beside him. He would open his mouth to protest instead, but his job security here was a hell of lot less stable than Thompson's and considering that _he_ was debating the likelihood of getting fired right now, keeping his mouth shut and everything else frozen perfectly still was the only way he was making it through being assigned to partner with Jack. 

Thankfully for him though, probably the only thing to be grateful about today, Agent Thompson no more wanted to be assigned to Steve than Steve did to him. 

The weight beside him shifted and Steve held his breath, waiting to see if Jack would throw in the towel, damn them both and ruin the rest of his frankly extremely shitty week. 

“Chief, I mean no disrespect, but Rogers and I don’t work well together--”

He actually did it, he actually kept protesting when his badge was on the line and Steve would be impressed if he wasn’t mortified, because Thompson was doing that out of pure hate, he’d rather risk being fired than go on a mission alone with Steve and Steve couldn’t even _blame_ him, he’d practically attacked the guy. If only it'd been so simple as a fist fight. 

Maybe if Chief knew, he’d cut them a break, but Steve sure as hell wasn’t telling and the Chief didn’t know.

“I don’t give a fuck what you’re fighting about! Neither of you make the executive decisions in this office, and I’m telling you to go do the job you’re getting damn _paid_ to do and--

“Actually, you know what? Because you’re both being absolute asses, you get to gather this bit of intel off the clock. Check out your time slots, go to the bar, talk to the damn source, and there had better be a report on my desk about it tomorrow morning or I will make both of your lives a hell of a lot worse than you already think they are. Now get out of my office.” 

They both stood frozen and Chief Duley waved a hand, voice escalating to a shout. “Out!” 

There were only a two agents left, it was clock-out time anyways, but they both jump-startled at the slam of the door opening, Jack stalking straight down the aisle as Steve grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and followed. 

He was tired, he felt like shit, he really wanted to see Bucky, or maybe just cry, but instead he was going to go sit in a bar with his mortal enemy until god knows when and he just had to keep his mouth shut and be quiet the whole time and everything would be okay.

Everything was not okay.

They both ordered drinks, even though Steve wouldn’t feel anything but shittier. The lights were low and the chatter was loud enough they could sit here entirely ignoring each other until the lead showed if they both kept their mouths shut. 

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Steve who opened his mouth and ruined everything this time.

It came out of nowhere, one moment pure silence as they stared down at their glasses and the next Jack was swirling his, speaking up over the dull noise.

“Listen, now that Brook is working at the SSR--”

Yeah, no. 

“Don't call him that,” Steve interrupted, sharp and bitter enough to make Jack’s bruise-free blue eyes turn to him. 

“What?” 

“I said,” Steve started, louder this time and twice as definitive, a thousand flashes of a nickname’s nickname running through purple veins. “Don't call him that.” 

“You don't have _any right_ to pick what I call _anyone_.” 

The glass was a _fraction_ away from shattering as Steve slammed it down on the counter, bristled and bunched up tight as a coiled snake as he shoved off the stool, started right for the fucking door. 

“Rogers, don’t you dare--” 

Steve didn’t even hear him. He couldn’t do that mission, let Duley fire him, let Thompson take advantage of his absence and keep his name off the report and use this to get Steve kicked out of the SSR, whatever, let them do it all. 

He couldn’t sit there and take that, he couldn’t sit anywhere and take this all right now, it was too much, he was losing Bucky and it was all _too much_. 

Stalking numbed feet were taking him in the vaguely correct direction but this was a bad part of town, he knew this was a bad part of town and he didn’t care, he didn’t _care_ , let him stumble, let his eyes blur over and his hearing ring he didn’t _care_.

 

“Did your friend just...storm outta here?” The bartender sympathetically poured him a new glass, glancing over Jack’s shoulder at the door that was practically still rattling from that slam. 

“He’s not my friend,” he muttered back, tipping back the new glass before he could get more questions. This time it was just an eyebrow raise before the glass was filled back up again. 

At least he took a few seconds longer to down that one. 

“Wow, hey there Mister, you sure look like you’re havin’ one hell of a night,” a cheery, high-pitched voice called out from behind him and Jack lifted his head, peering over his shoulder wearily at the pretty blonde sitting a few stools down. “You wanna talk about it?”

“You offerin’ to listen?” Jack huffed at himself, already waiting for the axiomatic no but the next thing he knew the little blonde thing was sliding into the seat Steve had just abandoned, sticking out a small delicate hand to shake. 

“I sure am.” 

The start of a smile curled on one side of his mouth and Jack reached over, took her hand carefully and shook it once. 

“Well, that’s awful nice of you Miss. The name’s Jack Thompson.” 

“I’m Dottie,” she piped back, smile bright as day. “Dottie Underwood.” 

 

 

There were no windows on the back of the L&L Automat, but he was pretty sure Angie had the closing shift. Steve let himself in the employee door as quiet as possible, just in case, glancing around the corner of the kitchen wall and sure enough, there was Angie wiping down the ready-to-eat fridges on the other side of the diner. 

Okay, that was perfect, all he had to do was clean himself up a bit in the sink first then he could ask her to walk him home and everything would be just fine--

The rest of the automat came into sight as he passed the open door of the kitchen, and he might not have seen him if Bucky wasn’t sitting right on the edge of the counter, swinging his legs and swaying a bit, whistling lightly as crystal eyes drifted over the diner. 

Steve inhaled between his teeth and backpedaled instantly, pressing his back up against the wall and cursing silently up at the sky for his stupid fucking luck. It was supposed to just be Angie! He’d come here specifically _to_ avoid Bucky and.

The whistling had stopped. Fuck, fuck, no, please, no, all he had to do was inch towards the door--

“ _Steve_?” 

Why. Just, why. Why did this have to be his life, why couldn’t he catch a break for once in his goddamn existence--

There was no point now, if he just sprinted out the door Bucky might chase him and then it’d be worse and he wasn’t sure he had it in him to sprint when his head was pounding so much anyways and. 

Mm, okay, too late anyways, that was Bucky’s hand on his shoulder spinning him around, Bucky’s crystal eyes going wide, Bucky’s lungs sucking all the oxygen out of the room as he inhaled sharp and fast, Bucky’s fingertips automatically instantly reaching upwards, freezing and curling awkwardly back in on themselves seconds before they touched his split cheek, his bloody nose. 

“What...what the fuck happened?”

“Please, don’t-- please don’t make a big deal of it, Bucky, it’s nothing like last time I was just gonna wash up and head home I didn't even start it I swear it’s not as bad as it looks--”

“Really, Rogers? _Really_? You’re gonna stand here bleeding and bruised and shaking like a leaf in Autumn--” Steve looked down at his hands, which were trembling, fuck, shoved those quickly in his pockets. “...and tell me, it’s not as bad as it looks?!” 

“Don’t be mad,” Steve tried, begged. The incredulous look on Bucky’s face was not a good sign. 

“Don’t be _mad_? You’re gonna make this about _me_?!” A tight little shake of his head and Bucky’s hand was suddenly on the back of his neck, definitely not in a romantic way, more of a really _pissed_ way, fingers tight and a little rough as he turned behind Steve’s shoulder and guided him to the sink under the inescapable grip. 

“The hell did you do?” The hand on the back of his neck shoved him down and Steve just went, Bucky was mad and Steve trusted him with his life, he’d never in a million years dream of hurting Steve more, even if he did hate Steve for kissing a boy none of it was showing right now, there was nothing but that same bottled caring pain he’d had everytime Steve took a beating this side of too bad when he was younger. 

A washcloth snagged from the closest shelf and the hand on the side of his face was being as gentle and careful as Bucky’s words weren’t. 

“Steve, you can’t fucking do this, you _know_ that.” The rough material scrubbed under his nose, wiping the blood away and making it kinda hard to breathe. “I don’t care if you’ll be healed this time tomorrow, you can’t afford fights with your strength, with the fucking _serum_. Just cause this time it’s the other guy in danger, unless you’re picking fights to _deliberately_ get punched--” 

The washcloth halted, dropped from Bucky’s bloody fingers to the sink and the hand on the back of his neck slid around to his chin, tipped his head up sideways so Bucky could look him in the eyes from where he was still bent over the sink. 

“...you did _not_ do this on purpose, _right_?” It was low and dark and Steve held his breath, counting to six in his head before Bucky’s face twisted up and he exploded, escalated right past the line of desperate.

“What the fuck, Steve! What are you doing, prowling the streets for muggers? Waiting in alleyways for some asshole to come by just so you can _spill blood_? Are you really starting fights just so you don’t have to deal with whatever the fuck is going on in your stupid head? You’d rather take a fist to your pretty face than actually _talk to me_ like a civilized human being? Steve, _listen_ , you can’t do that, you can’t-- You cannot do this to me, it is _not_ fair, I deserve so much more than worrying every damn second of my life whether you’re gonna land yourself in prison, or worse. This has _got_ to stop, pal, this has gotta stop right now.” 

Bucky released his chin and Steve dropped his head back down, staring at the pink water in the bottom of the sink. 

Bucky waited for an answer. Steve didn’t have anything to say. 

An exasperated huff and Bucky turned on the water, spray splattering the side of Steve’s head damp with cold droplets as he washed the blood off his hands, shook them once in the sink and put his hands back on Steve’s face, not bothering for the cloth this time. 

He couldn’t fight the wince as Bucky’s touch carefully traced over his nose, checking for broken bones with hands that had become experts at it and if Steve hated himself for anything, it was for forcing Bucky to become so damn good at this. 

Eventually, Bucky was satisfied enough that Steve wasn’t going to die anytime soon, curved a strong hand around the front of his shoulder and pulled him back upright. A towel dabbed over his face carefully while Steve’s eyes cut awkwardly to the side, trying to look at anything but Bucky’s face. 

Towel tossed down and this time the guiding palm landed hard on his shoulder, not giving a single other option as Bucky walked him out of the kitchen, down the length of the diner as Angie looked up with wide eyes. 

There was no way she hadn’t heard Bucky’s yelling, and Steve couldn’t meet her pitying gaze either. 

She took off for the kitchen, cutting behind them and Bucky just kept marching Steve to the door. 

He had no idea what to do anymore.

Buck snagged a pair of unfamiliar keys off the wall on the way out and Steve didn’t know what was going on until Bucky pushed him through the revolving door one step of a rotation ahead, letting it spin halfway around before the glass doors were jerking to a stop and Steve almost gave himself another bloody nose running into it. 

He turned around, bags under his eyes and bruises on his face and trembling fingers as Bucky held the door still, turned the key in the lock on the side. 

Did he just…lock Steve in the revolving doors. 

“Maybe one day, you’ll learn not to fight everything that damn moves, but until that day…” Bucky took a step backwards, hanging the keys back up on the wall and pinning Steve with a look. “No, I don’t trust you not to take off. Give me three seconds to check that Angie’s fine and I’ll walk you home, you asshole.” 

Steve blinked after him, one palm on the glass as he watched the retreating back, the tense, bunched up muscles in the shoulders shifting under his jacket. He was too tired to even correct himself from studying Bucky that much, too tired to care about whatever it meant that his heart was aching in his chest, too tired not to notice how goddamn beautiful Bucky was, even when he was pissed. 

Then he was turning the corner into the kitchen and Steve’s hand dropped from the glass, staring down at his shoes while he waited for however long Bucky needed. 

 

The minute he stepped into the kitchen Angie looked up, offering him this pained, sympathetic little head tip, big eyes all sweet and sad. 

“You holding up okay, Brooklyn?”

“I don’t wanna talk about,” Bucky muttered and she pursed her lips, wiping her hands on her apron. “Do you need any help before you close?”

“No, I’ve got it from here. But before you go, here, a friend of yours left a pretty urgent note for you to call him.” A hand slipped in the apron pocket and she was holding out a folded piece of paper to him. Bucky was damn tired of getting all these notes. 

The author of this one was pretty surprising though. One eyebrow lifted dully, looking back up at Ang’s patient expression. 

“Howard Stark came into the diner, specifically just to contact me?”

“Yeah, he said it's really important. He said you two need to set a meeting time?” 

Bucky shook his head, looking back down at the note that yeah, looked pretty urgent. He had no idea what the hell that could be about, what the hell kinda help he needed on his project with Peggy that required a visit to some lowly diner. “I have a really booked schedule right now.” 

“If it were me, I’d try to make time. He seemed pretty desperate.” 

“Alright.” He nodded, folding the note back up and slipping it in his jacket pocket. “I'll go call on that phone down the street. Can you go unlock Steve?”

“...what?” 

“He’s...in the revolving doors. Can you let him out? Tell him I’ll be home soon.”

 

Soon really was soon. But the ten minute gap was long enough that Steve’s exhausted bones took him out before Bucky could shoulder open their apartment door. 

His bruised up, shit of a best friend was passed out on the couch, one arm dangling for the floor and blonde swoop fucked to hell, mottled skin looking a dozen times worse in the pale moonlight slipping through the curtains. 

Bucky went straight for his bedroom, shrugging off his jacket and scooping up his warmest blanket. 

It wasn’t quite big enough to cover both Steve’s shoulders and his toes, so Bucky draped it over the sleeping body at a diagonal, hopefully covering a little more, it was December and chilly enough to be worried. 

His legs groaned in complaint as Bucky dropped to a crouch at Steve’s side, carding fingers through the blonde hair. Sliding between golden strands over and over, slowly working out the gel until it was soft and loose again. He should really stop, get up, go to sleep but he just couldn’t bring himself to. 

A thumb traced down the slightly darker roots of Rogers’ hairline, sweeping all the way down to outline the dip of his temple and Bucky really really should go. Gravity tugged and he leaned forward, balancing on creaking toes as he closed his eyes and pressed a solid, sincere kiss to Steve’s forehead. 

This stupid kid. He really was gonna be the death of him someday. 

His mouth made a quiet sound as he pulled away and a quiet huff escaped between Steve’s lips, shoulders shifting under the blanket and suddenly warm fingers were wrapping around his own before he could stand. 

Steve grabbed his hand, pulling it up to tuck messily entwined fingers under his cheek, curling a little tighter around himself the way he had when he was tiny. 

Stevie had to be dreaming, because the man that skidded around him at the office earlier today, couldn’t look him in the eye at the diner, would never. And Bucky was the one awake, he had a responsibility to pull his hand away, leave Rogers here and go get some shut eye before they both started spiraling down the path of never-ending exhaustion. 

But right now, he was the kind of tired that sleep couldn’t fix. No point lying on a mattress for hours when the only thing he wanted was Steve close and safe. 

The only thing he wanted was his best friend back. 

Bucky rocked backwards on his heels, landing down to sit properly, scooting his back up against the edge of the couch and stretching his legs out, one knee propped up as he tipped his head against the couch cushion and watched Steve sleep. 

There wasn’t much room with their hands this close to Steve’s face, but he found a way to slowly stroke his thumb back and forth over soft skin anyways. 

If he had it his way, if he could have anything in the world, he’d have the both of them get real, sweet, long, quality sleep. Laid out together, side by side, safe and warm under the covers in a nice, real bed but he’d never gotten what he’d wanted in life and this, right here, Steve holding his hand with the smooth warm skin of his cheek pressed up to Bucky’s fingers, it was about the closest to heaven he’d ever get and he’d stay here as long as he fucking could.

Come morning, Bucky woke first. Steve was still knocked out, deep enough that when Bucky slipped his hand free the blue eyes didn’t so much as flutter. 

He left a note, fuck notes but he wasn’t gonna let Steve wake up and have as shitty of a day as the past two. 

So he left a note for Steve, wrote that Angie planned a sing-along bar night for Friday, he was working a double shift at the diner and dropping off the SSR files early this morning so they probably wouldn’t run into each other. He had his audition tonight too, with Angie, don’t wait up. 

He kinda considered shutting off the alarm clock in Steve’s bedroom, calling into the SSR and explaining that Steve needed a sick day, but he’d tread on Steve’s life enough for the past few days, he didn’t need to make that decision for him too. 

Bucky threw on a jacket over his diner shirt, tied up his shoes, watched Steve breathe from the doorway for a few more moments before shutting it quietly behind him and turning the key in the lock. 

He had no idea how everything had gone sideways so damn fast. 

 

“Well hey there, Sous.” Jack shot him a grin, a crooked, genuine one. Again. Those were getting to be a lot more common. “It’s good to see a smiling face around here, you’d think someone had poisoned the sandwich shop next door based on all these sour agents.” 

“You’re smiling too,” Daniel pointed out and Thompson lifted a shoulder, both of them glancing around the bullpen. “But yeah, wow, that’s a lot of sour. Maybe they did poison that sandwich shop, I haven’t had lunch yet today.” 

“Neither have I,” Jack pointed out, propping on the edge of his desk. 

“Speaking of which, it’s past noon and I’m pretty hungry. Are you?”

Thompson shrugged and Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, looking sideways at the wall instead of those waiting sharp blues. 

“We could...walk somewhere together? If you don’t mind keeping with a slower pace, that is.” 

“You actually walk a lot faster than most people I know,” Jack offered and Daniel snorted, taking the crutch Thompson was holding out. “Although I gotta say, being seen with you in public…”

“Oh, shut up. You want Chinese? There’s this place a few blocks down--”

“I’m game if you’re game.” 

He was most definitely game. 

 

Through some twisted piece of beautiful good luck - maybe Karma, for all the shit she’d been putting him through lately - Ms. Fry was in a decent mood today, didn’t seem all that miffed as he asked if he could wait in the lobby for a friend, they had an audition today. 

“No ma’am, I promise we’re not dating. I’ve already got somebody to come home to. We’re just dance partners.” 

Too bad his somebody to come home to was a beautiful tortured soul who didn’t tell him anything anymore and would never ever want Bucky like that, had kissed a boy in some kinda fucked up fight when all Bucky’d ever wanted to do was keep that sweet mouth from stopping fights by kissing it silent his whole life. 

“I’ll go up and tell Ms. Martinelli you’re here,” she told him, and when she came back down she had the message that it’d be awhile, Angie was still getting ready. That was alright, he’d wait here, thank you. He’d figured that might be the case anyway, he did get here pretty early. 

He’d been sitting on the waiting bench for only a few minutes before a familiar bouncy step bounded through the door. 

“Oh, Bucky! How good to see you! What are you doin’ here?”

“Dottie, hi.” He stood up, wishing he had a hat to tip, or maybe shade the discomfort in his eyes. Still couldn't place what it was about her. “I’m just waitin’ on Angie, we’ve got a thing.” 

“You _sure_ you two aren’t dating? You’d be precious together!!” 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he smiled, shoving his hands in his pockets and tipping his head for the stairs. “Actually, Dot, if you’ve got a second, could you do me a favor?”

“Of course! Anything. What can I do?”

“Would you go upstairs and tell Peggy I’m in the lobby? I’ve got something I’d like to ask her.”

A bright smile and Dottie bounded forward, popping a quick peck on his cheek before she leaned back and offered the most cheery, agreeable, “I’d be perfectly happy to!”

Then she was bounding off and Bucky took out a handkerchief, wetting it the way Angie’d taught him and wiping down his cheek. One of these days. 

But it was worth it, because a few minutes later Peggy Carter was sweeping into the lobby, curls loose and eyebrows knit tight with worry. 

“Hey, relax, Peg.” He lifted his hands in defense, offering the most peaceful look he could, hoping she realized the vest and oxford he was wearing to dance in was nowhere near battle armour. “I’m not here to tell you anymore horror stories, okay?”

She did relax, just a little, glancing around the lobby nervously as Bucky indicated the bench behind him. 

“Sit with me? It’s nothing serious, I promise.” 

The brown eyes were still dark with concern as she sat, raising an eyebrow at him worriedly but at least she was looking him in the eyes now, he hadn’t missed the way she’d entirely avoided him since that conversation. 

“Are you holding up alright?” he asked first, low and gentle, not so gentle she’d bristle and snap because Agent Peggy Fucking Carter didn’t hate much more than being treated inferior. “I know I dumped a lot on you the last time we talked, and you didn’t deserve any of it--”

“James. I’m fine. It...um. It shook me a bit more than I thought it would, but I’m going to be just fine.” 

Bucky nodded, looking down at his hands. It’d shaken her more than he thought it would too. Obviously, it wasn’t easy to listen to no matter who you were, and as much as they pretended otherwise they really were friends and of course, that made it a hell of a lot harder to listen to. 

She cared about him, that much was clear, and he wasn’t sure when that’d happened or how, but he had a pretty good idea of why. 

He knew exactly who they’d both cared about first.

“Peg, can I...ask you something?” 

“Yes, James?” A pause as he fiddled with the button on his sleeve, debated whether there was a way to say this that wasn’t obvious as hell, but. It was Peggy, she already knew basically everything about him, if she read too much into the question, let her.

He’d been wondering it since the day they got back to New York, and considering the mess Steve was in right now, there was a chance she knew more than he did, or something, or. 

Okay, there was no easy way to say this. Bucky cleared his throat and just. Blurted it out.

“Why- Why aren’t you with Steve? I mean. You two are perfect for each other. I know he wouldda married you, first chance he got, so I just. I don’t get why…”

He trailed off, risking a glance upwards and Peggy didn’t look mad, or offended, not at all. The kind eyes just held his, studied for a beat, two, three, long enough he was starting to question whether it was that fucking obvious before finally Peggy opned her mouth, British accent dropping low,

“James, can you keep a secret?”

That was a hell of a thing to ask after a question like that. Watch, his luck, they were already married and all of this was just to fuck with him. But he didn’t say that, cynical shoved aside to drag out the honest instead.

“Probably as well as you can.” 

Peggy made a contemplative face, debating it over and Bucky would love to give her some damn examples, like maybe how he’d spent most of his life desperately in love with Steve Rogers and hadn’t felt a thing for a girl that wasn’t vague affection or appreciation of dancing skills, that his entire reputation was the biggest facade of anyone he’d ever met and. 

He didn’t say anything, let her come to her own conclusion and maybe it was everything he’d confessed to paper a few days ago, how he hadn’t told anyone about the truth of the hell he’d been through as a P.O.W, maybe it was simple trust, maybe it was an extension of the trust she had in Steve’s honesty and ability to pick good friends. 

Although good friends wouldn’t spend their lives so fucking gone--

Whatever convinced her, Peggy finally nodded, clasping thin fingers together and tipping her head, a quiet “Alright,” to herself. 

One breath, two, and the next thing out her mouth was the last thing he’d ever expected. 

“I...I was engaged, once. Before the war.” 

“You-- _really_?” 

Peggy pursed her lips, brown flicking to his for just a moment before looking away again.

“Yes, um. It was 1940, in England. He worked at the home base office. A nice bloke, he was sweet, but. Not quite my type, even if I couldn’t admit it at the time. My brother--”

“You have a brother?” He really wasn’t trying to interrupt every three seconds but Peggy’d just changed literally everything he knew about her inside of like six sentences. 

“Had,” she corrected quietly and Bucky straightened up, eyebrows furrowing at the downcast stillness, the sedate openness. Had.

“Oh Peg, I’m so sorry.” The quiet horror was nothing compared to the reality of it, the realizations turning over like mossed rocks lining a lake. 

“It’s alright. We...we were very close, we grew up playing together, fighting together, practically in each other’s pockets, he knew me better than anyone alive...I’m sure you can relate.” 

She offered Bucky a sad smile and he just stared back, stricken. If he was imagining right now what it would be like to lose Steve - he’d come close so many times already - Peggy understood exactly why that pretty face was twisted so distraught. His and Steve’s relationship wasn’t quite like theirs had been, the first being that Peggy’d been shipped off for girl’s school, forced to live the life of a proper lady while Michael had the freedoms of the world. Steve and Bucky had shared those freedoms, shared a tomb in that war and they still had each other, after all this time. 

There was no need to compare their relationships, but Bucky at the very least understood her, understood what it would mean if he lost Steve. Although, frankly, they differed there - Peggy wasn’t sure Bucky’d have the strength to power through, take Steve’s honor and faith and build something better of himself the way she had after Michael died. 

Bucky wasn’t like her when it came to that. Bucky would...perish, if he ever lost Steve. 

At least he understood. 

“Michael went off to war, the way everyone did, and he. He thrived, we both were made for adventure, for fighting, and he knew that. He recommended me to the SOE, as a spy. My fiancé thought it was ridiculous, everyone I knew thought it was ridiculous. So I turned down the job, let myself settle for what I thought I wanted - a simple, boring, easy life, marrying Fred. 

“Then I got the news. I was standing at the window, in my wedding dress, and two soldiers came to the house...I stood there, in all white, looking forward to the day that I would lock myself away from the life I wanted, and watched as my mother crumpled for the ground. Watched my brother, the brightest light I’d ever known, get snuffed out. He died on the frontlines, fighting, and I was about to throw in the towel forever before my life even began.” 

The landlady would skin them both alive if he reached over and pulled Peggy into a hug right now, but nothing could stop Bucky from wrapping his fingers over her hand, hidden from sight on the bench behind them and Peggy drew in a steady breath, staring down at their hands. 

“There was only one thing to do. I broke off my engagement, and I took the position in the SOE.” 

A few girls walked by, chatting amongst themselves and Bucky watched them go, turn the corner with their bright smiles and bouncing curls, not a care in the world. How could that possibly be the same world they lived in too, with all their tragedy and heartbreak?

“As much as I love Steve -- my job, this work that we do. It’s good work. It’s the right thing, for me, and I know now, I won’t give that up for anything. Not even a golden heart and a beautiful fighting face.” Peggy lifted a shoulder, mouth tipped up on one side and Bucky nodded, lifting his hands from hers and wetting his lips, words stuck in his throat a beat and a half too long, he didn't want to say them but he had to, heart spilled out on a platter just like hers was.

“You never thought it might work anyways? That you could have both, marry Steve and be Agent Peggy Carter too? I know he’d never. Never take the fight away from you, he loves that about you. It might. Be exactly the kind of marriage both of you need.” 

It sounded like an offering, like Bucky was here to give Steve’s hand away to Peggy in marriage and she just shook her head once at the pain laced under all that caution. But he did have a point.

“It might,” she agreed, watching the way the sun set right out of Bucky’s eyes. “And maybe it will one day. But for now, the war’s over. We’re home, I don’t think anybody’s in a rush to cause more ripples and waves. It’s enough, to have him in my life, I’ve been surviving just fine without him in my bed.” 

There was a touch of amusement at the end because they both knew Steve’d been exactly there a few nights ago, but Bucky got what she meant. 

He nodded to himself, tipping up both corners of his mouth in the weakest smile he’d ever attempted. 

That was the difference between him and Peg. That’s where the similarities and eye to eye and fighting fire and feisty brunette and charming smiles and raised eyebrows and sassy remarks and love for Steve split, where they differed so much it made them opposites in a thousand fucking ways. 

Peggy was happy just having Steve in her life and god, Bucky was too, but it killed him. It was killing him slowly, to watch Steve from so far away, further and further from his arms every day and he wasn’t surviving just fine without Steve in his bed, he wasn’t at all. 

That was their difference. She was stronger than him. Always had been. Probably always would be.

The silence wasn’t crushing, his chest was too tight to breathe for a thousand other reasons and she could probably smell it on him, feel it from the proximity alone, how goddamn much of a lie he’d been living for so long, a lie that was unraveling faster than he could catch the red string. 

Steve had kissed a boy and Bucky’s life was ruined, funny how something so simple could seal the headstone to his grave. 

For all their differences, Carter still knew him too well, still knew exactly how tortured and twisted he was inside and that was why she smiled, leaned close and offered the light, easy words like they were some kind of joke instead of the heartbreaking glass they both knew. 

“...and maybe I’m still a _tad_ superstitious about weddings.”

It was the only thing to do, tipping over and knocking their shoulders together with a broad smile and Peggy returned it, veil torn right off. Ironically, it was at that exact moment Angie Martinelli walked around the corner, bounced into sight full of brightness and joy and beauty and innocence and they both turned, lighting up with twin crinkles by their eyes.

“I dunno, Peg, I think anybody’d risk the superstition for a dame lookin’ like that.” 

Peggy shook her head fondly, popping to her feet to embrace bubbly Angie and her impossible cheer. 

“What superstition?” She demanded, leaning back to give Peggy a fond little grin and wow, Angie really did look stunning, hair swept up in a fancy bun, a few ringlets dangling down around her face to soften the look, wide-skirted dress that would be perfect for spinning, matched his vest perfectly with the dark blue. 

“Nothing, dear,” Peggy swept out an arm, handing Ang off to Bucky and he looped her hand through his arm, giving Carter a grateful nod that was about a lot more than dancing. She waved it off with a smile, happily herding them both for the door. “You better come back champions, I’ll have you know I’ve seen quite a few of those shows now and god knows Steve’s been in enough to have high expectations--”

“Oh, English, hush, you’ll make Bucky nervous. We’ll be fantastic, won’t we?”

“Of course, it’s us,” Bucky parroted, and then they were off, taxi rides and choreography and enough sweat and smiling to take his mind off everything for just a few hours, the best hours he’d had in a damn while. 

 

Angie was still glowing Friday morning, telling Peggy for about the twentieth time how loud the judges had clapped, how promising the _we’ll be in touch_ was, how good Bucky was and they’d actually nailed that move, the one they’d been so worried about and there was a chance she might make a real career at this and what if they called, wanted her to pack up to leave right for LA tomorrow, what a life that would be…

She was still smiling into her tea as Angie bounced off, thinking about how they all deserved one good thing in their lives right now, when Edwin Jarvis suddenly slid into the booth across from her. 

She almost spit out her tea, thankfully managing to whip a hand in front of her mouth first, mumbling a quick apology as she reached for a napkin and dabbed at her lipstick, managed a surprised,

“Mr. Jarvis!”

“Miss Carter,” he replied rather solemnly, glancing over his shoulder at the bustle of the morning crowd before leaning over the table with that tall, signature fretting of his. “Have you time to talk?”

The surprise hadn’t quite settled yet and she waved a hand with her reply, “Of course, yes. Has Howard found something on the case?”

“Quite the opposite, I’m afraid. There was a very _very_ promising lead who was planning to come in and discuss what they knew, but unfortunately they had to call and cancel because they’re being dragged to a _singing bar_ tonight.” 

The scorn with which he said the singing bar would be funny on any other day, but it wasn’t today because it was _their_ squad that had the singing plans, it was Angie who’d marked all their calendars and told them it wasn’t optional, and she was fairly sure Daniel was even going to make it to this outing. 

Which meant the promising lead Howard had tried to pull in was Bucky, which was not alright, because Howard was being quarantined from him for a _reason_. That reason was that his bigass genius mouth had no idea how to keep shut, ever.

“He deserves to know.”

Dammit, she knew that. She _knew_ that. But she just couldn’t do it to him. How could she-- 

“Jarvis, believe me, I’m being as sincere as I possibly know how. I understand, probably better than Howard does, exactly how much James deserves to know. But I cannot find a way to tell him. Not now.” 

“Miss Carter--” 

“Just. Give me more time. If we have to rip his life apart, let me be the one to do it. But let me do it when he’s not already going through hell.” 

“If he’s going through a rough time, there’s a chance this won’t seem that much worse, you might as well--”

“No. No, Mr. Jarvis, I will not be responsible for breaking that man in half, which is exactly what telling him now would do. Please pass on to Mr. Stark that neither I nor he will be talking to James Buchanan Barnes anytime soon, or so help me I will _end_ his existence, starting with blowing up those precious cars he loves.”

“Miss Carter! You wouldn’t _dare_.”

“Oh-hoh-oh, boy, would I.” 

Mr. Jarvis huffed, standing abruptly and looking down his nose at her, straightening his jacket out with that prissiness that wasn't fooling anyone. 

“Well then. I will...most definitely pass along the message. I hope you do have a perfectly fine day, Miss Carter.” 

“You as well, Mr. Jarvis, and please don’t pass along my regards to your employer.” 

He swept out in a huff and Peggy groaned loudly, thudding her forehead down on the table. 

Why her? Why was it always her?

 

There was a note for him on the counter when he came in for his shift after lunch. 

Bucky held his breath as he unfolded it, but it wasn’t from Howard, or an admirer again, it was the only person he really wanted to hear from. 

There wasn’t a word on it. 

Just a drawing. 

 

The door stared blankly black at her as she rapped her knuckles on the wood, waiting patiently and trying not to think about how much had changed just since the last time she’d been here, dressed to the nines instead of wrapped up and shivering in her biggest coat. 

Bucky didn’t open the door this time, just shouted from inside, a distant, distracted-sounding “Come in!”

She cracked open the door, peering around the corner as she carefully stepped inside. Bucky glanced up from the living room, gave her an unconvincing smile and went right back to running a sheet of sandpaper over fine wood. 

“I thought we weren’t heading out for another two hours,” he said, running his fingertips over the edge of the board. Peggy stepped further into the apartment, taking note of the knives and wooden pieces strewn on the living room floor. 

“We’re not. I was guessing you’d be sleeping, with your schedule. These are the only two hours you’ve had off for the past...week, I believe.” 

Bucky shrugged. She’d almost not come over, just on the chance that Bucky was here and sleeping, she’d never in a million years want to interrupt that. But he wasn’t sleeping, he was building something, and she couldn’t imagine what in hell could be more important than the exhaustion that had to be wearing down his bones. 

“Aren’t you cold?” She ventured, arms crossed tight over her chest or else she’d gesture at the white tanktop he was wearing, in the middle of damn December. 

“This is nothin’.” The sandpaper swept back and forth, making these steady, soothing scratching noises. “Europe, now that’s cold.” 

She tipped her head in agreement, turning to look over her shoulder, see if Steve had come out of his room. The door was open, but it actually looked empty. 

“Is Steve here?”

“Nope.” Scratch, scratch, muscles in his arms shifting like he’d gotten back from war yesterday. “Thankfully.” 

“Thankfully?” She knew they were still fighting, or something, but if she could get Bucky to open up--

“Yeah. I can’t work on the easel when he’s here, y’know? Steve’s nosy as hell.” Crystal eyes flickered up, back straightening for a moment to wipe the back of his wrist over the sawdust that was gathering on his hairline. 

“Is it for him?”

“Yep.” Bucky turned the piece of wood over, folding the sandpaper in half and very carefully starting to smooth over the stunning carved design on that side. 

“It’s beautiful,” she offered. 

“Thanks.” 

He should really be sleeping. They had quite the night ahead of them, knowing Angie and their dancing schedule, quite the weekend ahead of him, and instead, the only two hours of freetime he got all week and he was working on something for Steve. 

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Bucky finally asked, flipping open a pocketknife to carve the crease of a swirl a little deeper. 

“I just wanted to see Steve.” 

Bucky smiled. A real, soft, pretty smile, sandpaper swooping down like teartracks. 

“Now that, I can understand.” 

She’d thought she loved Steve. 

She was wrong. 

The look on Bucky Barnes’ face, that was it. That was the kind of love Steve deserved. That was utter devotion, of the highest kind. There was something so. Beautiful, and pure about the way Bucky cared, you could see it in every stroke of those long arms down the prettied wood. 

She couldn’t ruin him. They were both here, everything was quiet and peaceful in this bubble, and she could tell him about the serum, right now. She should. It was probably the only right time she was ever going to get. 

Peggy watched Bucky carefully, slowly shave off a piece of light wood, curl growing and winding tighter before dropping from the edge of a knife, floating down to the floor to rest with a dozen others. 

Bucky Barnes had someone he loved with his entire world. Something, someone, to live for. He didn’t deserve an ounce of this. He didn’t deserve to be ruined again. The only thing he deserved was peace. 

 

She left him there to the easel without another word. 

“You excited, English?” Angie bustled around her room, ducking to glance in her mirror, pin a curl back up. 

“I’ll have you know I’m not a terribly good singer.” 

“Oh, I’m sure you’re just wonderful. You know who’s a great singer though? Brooklyn, you wouldn’t _believe_ the mouth on that boy.” 

Peggy laughed. Oh, she knew. She most definitely knew. 

Angie shot her a smile and Peggy turned around, indicating the buttons on the back of her dress. “Would you mind?”

“Not at all.” 

Long fingernails clacked as she buttoned Peggy up, chattering something about a singing portion of an upcoming audition, sweeping Peggy’s hair over her shoulder to button up the top three. 

This, this was easy, this was so nice, why couldn’t it be like this all the time? This was so much simpler. 

“...it’s just wild, y’know, I still can’t figure out if he’s one hell of an actor or if he’s just a fantastic secret keeper--”

“Why’s that?” Peggy peered over her shoulder and Angie slipped the last loop through, tipping her head with a little smile. 

“I haven’t told you? Awhile back, at the diner, we were having a flour fight and it was wicked fun, we were skidding all over the place and throwing powder at each other when Dottie - yeah, next-door neighbor Ohio Dottie waltzed right in. And she asked if we were together, which I obviously instantly refuted and so did Bucky, but then he said the _strangest_ thing. Let’s see if I can remember it exactly…oh, yeah!” 

A snap of her fingers and Peggy turned all the way around to face her as Angie put a finger on the side of her mouth and rolled her eyes to the side to remember. “‘That’s real sweet, but this heart is spoken for.’ The strange part was that he sounded like he _meant_ it.” 

The last time she’d asked him, Bucky’d said he was too busy to have a dame. He was working two jobs, had been for most of his life actually, but he had plenty of time for Steve, how was it he had no time for a girl? It’d struck her as odd, but that was nowhere near as odd as what Angie’d just said.

This heart is spoken for? 

That made absolutely _no_ sense. None.

Bucky Barnes spent all of his time and energy on Steve Rogers, how could be possibly be in love with someone else?

Wait...someone else? Someone...else.

No. No, that wasn’t possible, just because Howard teased about loving Steve the same way she did, just because she was thinking in a different direction with Angie did not mean that people _felt_ that way. 

Sure, there were always rumors of homosexual men during the war, but never men like Bucky Barnes, who had that hell of a reputation, that went through that many women--

That couldn’t _stick_ to a single woman. That no one ever doubted, or questioned his loyalty-bordering-on-obsession with his best friend, not when he was such a womanizer. That had hated her so much the minute they first met, accused her of stealing Steve from him, that couldn’t. 

That couldn’t mean. What it sounded like. 

A man that’d had Peggy in his arms, swept up and under the Bucky Barnes Spell of Charm for just the briefest moment while they danced and. Had done absolutely nothing with it. Hadn’t made a single move on her. Hadn’t even seemed all that interested, physically. Maybe he...wasn’t interested in girls, at all. 

Was that. Could that be possible? 

Did that...did that change in his mind and body, if he were like that, would it have anything to do with how he was the only one to survive the bastardized serum? Because he was...different? 

Was Bucky, well-dressed, easy to smile, joked about wearing lipstick before kissing it Bucky Barnes a homosexual? 

And it all clicked. 

From the jealous way Bucky looked that night in the tavern to the job at the SSR to the easy comfort he had with women like they didn’t intimidate or worry him in the least to the way he hadn’t attempted to bring home a single dame since Brooklyn and. 

Oh. 

If he was. That meant. Oh. Oh, no, oh _no._

The hours he was spending, right now, from that beautiful easel to the black eyes he’d dished, always putting that boy ahead of himself in every priority and behind him in every fight, protective and so damn dedicated and.

Of course. Oh god, of course. 

Steve. Bucky and Steve. 

 

 

“It’s about damn time you came with us! You’ve been avoiding group night since we first invited you,” Bucky teased, throwing an arm around Daniel’s shoulder and ruffling the back of his hair. “You got first song?”

“No, no way in hell. Oh-- sorry, uh, Miss Martinelli, I didn’t mean to curse--”

“Listen, Cali, don’t worry about it. Believe me, the rest of these fine gentleman couldn’t stop cursing around me if they tried. Not to mention that Peg’s the worst of them all.” 

Daniel shot them a surprised look as Peggy elbowed Angie in the ribs, turning to Steve to whisper under his breath,

“Wait, why’d she call me Cali?”

“For California, probably. She gives people place nicknames.” 

“Place nicknames…?”

“You look like you’d like to live in LA!” Angie called over her shoulder in explanation, already leading Peggy up for the stage. 

“Is that a...good thing?” Sousa asked confusedly and Steve shrugged. 

“It’s Angie. It’s probably a good thing.” 

“Now, the only important question of the day,” Bucky caroled, leaning over to smile through the double shift tired he was riding, holding up all these masks as he gave the brightest cheer he could, god knows they all needed it. “...can you sing?”

 

Surprisingly, they all found out that in fact, Daniel could. No one was surprised Bucky or Angie could, and everyone cheered and hollered for a duet between the two of them, to which they dramatically refused at first but both quite happily bounded up to belt out a number, dance moves and all. 

Peggy and Steve were the most reluctant to take the stage, Steve kept insisting he’d spent way too much time on them as a showgirl already and Peggy didn’t want to compete with Angie’s voice because she was fine, but Angie was _amazing_. 

A lot of drinks and convincing and Peggy finally went up and sang, threw out her arms to dramatize it and everything. 

So in an ironic turn of events, last to get on stage was Steve, who finally only went up because Bucky planted two hands on his back and physically pushed him for the steps. 

“Buck, c’mon, you know I can’t--”

“I know you _can_ , which is exactly why you’re going to!”

“I don’t even know what to sing!”

“How about that one ballade you always sing in the bath?”

“I do _not_ \--”

“Steve, I _live_ with you, I’ve lived with you for like, six years.” 

“We didn’t have baths during the war--”

“Go, go, get up there, we are not arguing about this, you are going to go sing.” 

Steve sighed, loudly, but he was sitting petulantly on the stool in the middle of the stage twenty seconds later, so clearly, it worked. 

Bucky hopped up on the little stage where the pianist was waiting, leaning over to tell him the song and Steve shot mild glares as he adjusted the microphone to his height. 

He jumped back down for their giant circle booth and Peggy patted the empty space next to her, smiling as Bucky plopped down and propped his chin in a hand, shooting her one in return before turning those crystal eyes on the stage. 

Steve cleared his throat nervously and parted the lips that were still just slightly swollen to match the faded gash on his cheekbone, all other bruises and dark bags disappeared with time or maybe just stage lights. 

Whatever it was, the only blue up on stage was those shining shining eyes and the edged tone in the deep voice as it lifted over the bar.

“I wished on the mooon, for something I ne-ver knew. I wished on the moon...for more than I ev-er knew…”

Both hands clutched loose around the microphone, glances their way under long eyelashes casting dramatic shadows under the stage lights. 

“A sweeter rose, a softer sky, on April daays...that would not dance away.” 

Those lights made everyone else’s skin too bright, almost comical with flashing eyes and laughing voices but for Steve, he just glowed like the star on the chest of his uniform was something they’d found inside first. 

“I wished on the staars, to throw me a beam or two.” Bucky’s fist was curled under his jaw, blinking slow as he watched the boy up on stage, all the stress lines, harsh corners softened out into something impossibly sweet. “I begged of the stars, and asked for a dreeam or two.”

Blonde tipped in the light as blue flickered closed, gently pink lips parting around the next line as Bucky stopped breathing. 

“I looked for every loveliness, it all caaame true.” Every time he’d ever touched Steve, touched that smooth pale skin in his life, it hadn’t been for long enough. He’d never had long enough and Bucky didn’t have tears in his eyes at all. 

“I wished on the mooon...for you.” 

The piano pattered into a pretty, calm rift higher as Steve looked down at his feet, leaning back on the stool, microphone tipping with him. Peggy leaned over to the besotted man beside her, red lips tipping close to his ear. 

The moment was soft and careful, she spoke quietly enough to keep it that way, sure in her tone, her expression, to hold as much open sympathy as she had in her soul as she whispered to Bucky the question she already knew the answer to. 

“You love him, don’t you?”

Bucky glanced over, shining crystal lighting on dark eyes for a single moment and their faces were close, close enough she’d be able to tell every single flicker of a lie if it so much as considered crossing his mind. It wouldn’t matter if she were a million miles away, years of walls had been doing nothing but crumbling, chipping away and he didn’t have it in him to lie right now, not when Steve’s foot was tapping slowly on that old rickety wooden stage.

“Doesn't everyone?” He replied quietly and Peggy’s eyebrows knit, pained as she tipped her head.

“Bucky...” It was heartbreaking and chiding all at once and Bucky lifted both corners of his mouth in misery, so much misery Peggy’s eyes were shining too as she opened her mouth one more time with a kiss to his gravestone. “You’re _in love_ with him, aren’t you?”

The earth didn’t shake, the moon didn’t fall down from the sky where Steve was wishing upon it with the next verse of his beautiful lifted voice and Bucky simply turned away, moon broken right in half and shining bright in those two silver blue eyes. 

“Who isn’t?”

He rocked to the side as Peggy leaned over, kissed his cheek, eyelashes staining his temple damp. Bucky rocked back upright as he’d ever be, glancing over Steve’s sweet singing voice one more time before turning to study the first woman who’d ever loved Steve too. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wiping a hand under her eyes, the single tear off her cheek. Bucky nodded, reaching for the handkerchief in his pocket before deciding forget it, leave the mark on his skin to match Steve's, blood red was about the only color that fit him anyways. 

Bucky nodded, nodded, biting his lip as he looked away, voice breaking over the worst thing Peggy Carter had ever, ever heard out of his mouth. 

“Yeah. Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha shit's goin' down soon guys
> 
> thank you all so much for your comments holy shit xx
> 
> Chapter title from Ella Fitzgerald's [The Lady Is A Tramp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQkIccS-W4U)
> 
> The song Steve sings is I Wished On the Moon, you can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maZIw7XMm48) :) and cry :)
> 
> I don't know how this turned into angst, I don't, honestly I wrote this fic specifically to be fluffy nonsense and here we are
> 
> Seriously, thank you again for all of the amazing comments you guys leave, they absolutely make my entire life xx


	8. if I could speak my mind like others do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha hi friends, this is the chapter where Shit Goes Down
> 
> Warnings: horrific war mentions, dissociative panic attacks - including triggering into torture mode, someone gets shot, someone gets kissed, and there's an explicit as hell (also unprotected and pretty reckless but think of the time period) scene at the end of the chapter featuring, again, don't hate me, two characters that aren't in the pairings list for this fic MEANS TO AN END OKAY
> 
> Also, holy shit, internalized time-period accurate homophobia x 1000
> 
> fuckery, my friends, so much fuckery is going down
> 
> I hope you enjoy? I'm sorry as hell? 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I've been planning this chapter since I first wrote this fic tbh so I'm also excited as hell to be yelled at, give it all to me my loves~~
> 
>  
> 
> xx

They swung into the lobby together but couldn’t’ve been walking side by side for long, Bucky still had his greeting smile on as he reached over and up to steal the crooked hat off Jack’s head. A flip in the air and Bucky was fitting it over his dark pomade, lifting his chin up to look down with that little shit of a smile. 

“I gotta get me one of these.”

Thompson looked more amused than annoyed, flattening a hand over the gelled stiff blonde like it wasn't fucking perfect. “It looks good on you.”

“Everything looks good on me,” Bucky pointed out, sweeping the hat off to put it back on Jack’s head. “Looks better on you though.”

“I’m so flattered,” Jack shot back, like his cheeks weren’t bright pink. “I’ll bet you near everything does.” 

“Ouch,” Bucky smiled and they both stepped into the lobby elevator, voices fading with the distance. “I pull off brunette way better than you would.” 

“Touché.” Jack replied, half a smile on his face as he turned, metal doors sliding shut. He couldn't see Bucky’s face but Jack was smiling and that was enough. 

Steve tossed aside the newspaper he’d been peering over the top of, flopping his head back against the lobby chair and sighing loudly. Closing his eyes against the burning image of their smiles didn't make him feel even slightly better. 

He was sick of being complacent, of letting everything just happen to him but all he could do was look from afar and keep silent ‘cause if he opened his mouth he was gonna either say the wrong thing or put his damn mouth on Bucky’s--

Steve's lips parted at the thought, shuddering breath drawn into begging lungs. He’d been doing nothing but trying to keep himself from thinking that for so fucking long, this entire goddamn time it was just avert divert anything else but. He'd spent years drawing Bucky's mouth and now everything was shattered and there was the slightest chance that was the reason why but he couldn't think about what that mouth felt like under his because the last time he’d kissed anyone it’d ruined his life and Bucky was so much more than anyone, Bucky was _everything_. 

He forcibly snapped his jaw back shut, swallowing and squeezing his eyes shut tighter, counting heartbeats like that could slow down his pulse. 

Regardless, his pulse was shot two seconds later when a very loud smacking kiss landed on his cheek. Steve’s eyes shot open wide in surprise, tipping his head back to see Peggy swooping down to prop on the armrest of his chair. 

He sat up all the way and would you look at that, she was wearing a hat too, bright red with a black band over a lovely blue suit, lips red to match - and now marked on his cheek. 

“What was that for?” 

“You looked upset,” she defended, thumb running over his jaw affectionately. “And sometimes I think you forget how much we all adore you, you really have no reason to be upset.” 

“No...no reason to be up _set_?”

Whatever miraculous perspective had hit Peggy over the past weekend he wasn't lucky enough to be privy to - the waving dismissive hand was the ridiculous one, not him. 

“We’ll figure this thing with Bucky out, you don’t have to worry, Steve. I’m doing what I can to keep him safe.” A sweet, sincere smile, hand patting his arm.

“You two have grown really close lately,” Steve pointed out bitterly and Peggy offered a steady hand to lift him out of the chair, curls bouncing as she shook her head. 

“And I still have no idea why you two are fighting.” 

Steve groaned up at the ceiling at the mention of _that_ again and Peggy him for the elevator, his hand hooked through her arm.

“We’re not really...fighting, we’re just not talking either. But we’re not even not-talking, we’re just not talking like we used to, conversations over breakfast are perfectly civil, quieter than usual but even if we’re speaking to each other we’re not saying the things we need to and--”

“Who’s fault is that?” Peggy interrupted, shooting him a look as she pressed the elevator button for their floor and Steve huffed, collapsing forward to press his forehead to the back of her shoulder, mouth opening in protest that it was only half his fault --

maybe not even quite half because Buck was always the one fixing things, Steve didn’t even know where to start. But Bucky wasn’t even trying, hadn’t even _tried_ talking about it, “it” being the small detail that Steve kissed a boy but Buck was working at the SSR now and Steve had no idea how befriending Jack Thompson was doing anything but breaking his heart and

\-- before could say a word of it, a shout interrupted, sounding super far away hidden here behind Peggy’s slick blue shoulder. 

“Wait! Hold the elevator.” 

Peggy stuck out an arm - thankfully not the one he was leaning on - and the elevator door shuddered to a halt. Steve picked himself up from being dramatically draped over Peggy to see Agent Sousa stepping into the elevator and glancing at him confusedly. 

“Oh! Sous, hey, how’re you doing?” 

“Pretty good, thanks Rogers,” Daniel answered slowly, looking back and forth between Peggy and where Steve was still lowkey leaning on her. Oh, shit. 

He took a quick step backwards, out of Peg's peripherals as he waved a quick finger between them and shook his head in an exaggerated _no_. He’d seen the other day that conversation between the two of them, he knew exactly how much Daniel liked Peggy and he was definitely not gonna stand in the way of that with his whiny clingy self. 

Daniel rolled his lips in, nodding but the expression on his face said he didn’t quite believe it. Steve shook his head a little more vigorously on the no and Daniel cleared his throat. 

“You’ve got uh,” he indicated to his cheek and _oh_ , fuck, the lipstick mark, he’d totally forgotten. Steve rubbed at it, pulling bright red fingers away. Dammit, all he did was smear it, how the fuck did Bucky always manage to get them off just fine--

The door slid shut, elevator jolting as it took them upwards and it was palpably awkward in here. Daniel who liked Peggy and Peggy who liked Steve who liked her back but it was too complicated for them right now but that didn't change the fact that she pecked him on the cheek easy as pie while Daniel walked in on them like that and. Thick thick tension while Daniel looked at his shoes and Steve tried to surreptitiously lick his thumb, get the evidence off his cheek. Peggy with her professional blue blazer, skirt, heels, staring straight forward at the metal elevator doors as she broke the heavy creaking silence, voice perfectly dead serious as that stare. 

“Is anyone into threesomes?” 

“Peggy!” Steve scolded instantly and Daniel’s jaw dropped. He'd never heard her vulgar like that, ever, looking about as shocked as a nun in a brothel. Peggy glanced over, bursting into a bright laugh that turned into that wide, dimpled smile as she looked back at the elevator doors with her head tipped under that wickedly vibrant hat, wickedly vibrant mouth. 

“She’s kidding,” Steve translated helpfully, flicking her arm hard and Peggy shot a mild glare at him before turning the smile into a slightly more pitying one, glancing back over at Sousa, who was still just blinking wide. 

“I’m sorry, Daniel, I simply couldn’t resist.” Carter sounded about 3% sorry, 97% amused to hell.

His eyebrows were basically on the ceiling as he nodded, overwhelmed and thankfully that’s when the doors slid open to their floor. Sousa was out of the elevator so fast it was remarkable he had a crutch. 

Peggy and Steve paused in the doorway, turning to look at each other and they both lasted about three seconds before they were cracking up, shaking heads as Steve followed her into the bullpen. 

 

He didn’t usually get in the habit of having staredowns with inanimate objects, but that’s basically exactly what was happening as he sat here in his office chair and glared at the metal contraption everyone said was a glove. 

It wasn’t a glove. And it wasn’t complete. And honestly, it freaked him the fuck out because he’d _seen_ it before he just couldn’t place it. 

Finally he sighed loudly, wheeling his chair closer in defeat and scooping the thing up. The metal was cold, surprisingly smooth. For some odd reason he’d thought it’d be sharp--

He had no idea what he hit, or why no one had played with it enough to flick whatever the hell he just did, but one minute it was this smooth hand-looking contraption and the next his finger was bleeding. 

“ _Ow_ , what the hell!”

Steve spun around so fast Bucky was pretty sure he gave himself whiplash. 

“Buck, you okay?”

“No,” he replied incredulously, lifting up the armor and flipping it over, peering at the long thin pricks that’d just stabbed him. _Oh_ , holy _shit_. “Oh god.” 

“What’s wrong?” Suddenly Peggy had materialized by his side too and Bucky lifted up his bleeding finger to show her, not tearing his eyes away from the thing. “This? You’re whining about this?” 

She already had her handkerchief wrapped around his finger before he could look up, nodding a quick thanks before shoving up out of his chair. 

“I figured out what the hell this thing is for.” Thompson had somehow appeared too, all three of them following him like pack dogs up to the board at the front of the room. 

“Steve, hand me a pencil. Here, Jack, hold this. Careful, it bites.” He shoved the metal thing at Thompson who looked rather alarmed, holding it delicately like it really was teeth instead of long metallic needles. 

Steve placed a pencil in his hand and Bucky stuck his tongue out on one side of his mouth, leaning in close to the board as he sketched the sharp lines in against the metal-encased skeleton, curving the armor contraption a few inches away from the bone to show how it connected. 

“What the hell…” Bucky raised an eyebrow in agreement as Steve leaned over his shoulder to peer closer. 

“Hey Peg, would you mind looking in the archives for any files on Russian-German correspondence during 1941?”

“Any...particular reason?” She asked and Bucky shot her a glance, tapping the board with the pencil eraser. 

“Just got a hunch, but the hunches are coming fast and I’m pretty sure I know exactly what this is for, and exactly what you’re gonna find.” 

She rolled her lips in and stalking heels rushed around the side of the board, leaving the three of them there to stare at the board and the metal in Jack’s hand. Bucky was sandwiched between two blondes who couldn’t hate each other more but that really wasn’t anywhere near on his mind right now. 

“You wanna explain…” Thompson trailed and Bucky took the armor back, lifting up one of the fingers to reveal the needles underneath. 

“You see those? They’re what connects the armor to the metal casing the bones.” 

“It...what?”

“Okay, listen. Example - see how this fits over a hand? The tips of these are magnetic and made out of the same material as the bone grafts. So to connect the two, you heat up the tips and then pierce the skin, all the way down to the bone so the hot metal melds to the grafts.” 

He waved a hand at the diagram he drew, holding his hand up to show the same position. “That way, the metal’s on both the outside as armor but connected to the inside too, making it twice as strong and impossible to remove once they’re soldered together.”

The needles chose that moment to stab into his hand again and he hissed, practically throwing the thing back at Jack. He had no idea why the little magnetic pricks kept fucking attacking _him_.

Steve had another handkerchief shoved his way in seconds and Bucky narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the blue. Both he and Peggy were super over-attentive lately, it was just weird as hell. 

“You’re bleeding,” he pointed out quietly and Bucky sighed, looking down at his hand staining Steve’s handkerchief red. 

“I noticed. Anyways. Now you know what the armor’s for, I told you it wasn’t as simple as a glove.” 

Both the blonde heads tipped in varying stages of agreement and Bucky felt weirdly like being trapped between two halves of a mirror. 

“You sure about this though, Buck? I mean, it kinda makes sense, but. I don’t see how you could solder this to bone, even if it’s metal.” Steve looked up at him with those soft sky blues and Bucky sighed, tapping the corner of his drawing. 

“If you get the tips hot enough before you pierce the skin, and then heat it up from the outside too, the metal melts. And the tips are magnetic already, so they line up on their own.”

“How the _hell_ do you know all this?” Thompson finally asked and Bucky sucked in a breath, one shoulder lifting as he mouth pursed into a grimace. 

“No idea. I just...do. Maybe somebody talked about it in front of me once or something, I dunno.” It was already making him kinda queasy just talking about it, let alone looking at the metal thing or dealing with the fact that he was bleeding right now from another one of Zola’s fucked up experiment things. 

Wow, that was a really not good thought. A really not good, he _fuck_ , the board was swaying and okay, there was a solid hand on his shoulder. He was fine. They were gonna get the bastard, it was discoveries like this that were gonna let ‘em get the bastard. 

“I’m still stuck on connecting them, though. It sounds like that process would burn the flesh pretty badly.” Steve’s mouth was twisted to the side as he stared at the drawing and it took a few seconds to calibrate that it was Thompson’s hand on his shoulder instead of Rogers’.

“Flesh heals,” he pointed out and Steve shook his head once.

“It just sounds downright _painful_. Wouldn’t it hurt a hell of a lot more than help? I can’t imagine anyone would heal enough from the process to have this armor thing be useful in the least.” 

Bucky chewed on his lip, pointedly looking down at the blood-spotted kerchief instead of Steve’s waiting face. 

“Not...someone like you.” 

It went real quiet at that. Quiet enough that Bucky forced himself to glance back up, meet the blue eyes that were looking at him steady and quiet and perfectly still. 

“You mean a serum recipient?” 

Steve said it way way calmly and Bucky rolled his lips in, looking away, staring at the wall over Steve’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, I mean. Not to freak you out or anything. But it was Schmidt who funded all of Zola’s experiments.”

“Right, right, of course.” Of course that’s who he’d been talking about. Blue eyes dropped all the intensity, just curious now as he glanced over the contraption. “You think this was originally for him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know who it’s for, I just know exactly what it does, which is this.” A waving hand to indicate the drawings and diagrams and the stupid metal armor Thompson was holding and the thing was, if he was right about this, there were a lot of other bones on this skeleton shaded that same metallic gray. 

Whatever “this” was, they only had the tiniest fucking pieces of it. And Bucky could barely stomach _those_. 

 

Admittedly, she did burst into the file room a little dramatically. It was just that they were discovering things, she had a new sample of Barnes’ blood tucked in her pocket, and her heart was pounding fast _before_ she saw Daniel startle and look up from the dusty file laying open in his arms. 

She gave him a tight smile and started perusing the stacks for the weird date and subject Barnes had requested. 

Daniel kept glancing up, still looking at her funny and it took a lot not to laugh from the picture of that jaw dropping in the elevator.

She adored Steve, she did, more than everything but it really wasn’t like that. Well, not in that moment anyways. 

Well clearly, Daniel wasn’t going to say anything about it so. You know what. Might as well. 

Peggy gathered the little stack of Russian and German 1941 files in her arms and marched right across the room, planting her free hand on the file cabinet right in front of those big brown eyes. 

Daniel looked up under long lashes - nothing to rival Rogers’ though - eyebrows raising as he hopped to shift a little on his crutch. Peggy counted to three in her head and just burst out with it. 

“I’m not with Steve either,” she started, rambling a bit. “And I’m quite sorry if I offended you, I just wanted to make sure I clarified before you went off and thought--”

Daniel leaned over and kissed her.

Peggy’s eyes went wide, and she’d drop her mouth open in surprise if her mouth wasn’t currently preoccupied with being smushed by Daniel Sousa’s. Oh god. Sousa. He’d made it fairly clear that he liked her but. 

The mouth on hers tilted a touch and her eyes slipped closed, leaning up on her tiptoes and pressing back into the kiss. 

It simultaneously lasted forever and briefer than a second, then Daniel was leaning back away and Peggy’s eyes were fluttering back wide, staring up in unadulterated shock at the twinkling dark brown. 

“Thought what?” he finished for her and Peggy opened her mouth, tripping over silence as she realized his was nice and red now, and her lipstick couldn’t’ve been smudged just from that but bloody mary of heaven above, she’d just been kissed by Daniel Sousa at work in the basement _file room_.

“Um,” she stammered, about the most clever thing she’d said yet today and Daniel bit his lip with that twinkle, her mouth flapping like a stunned, deoxygenated fish as he looked down at her and slowly smiled wide. 

“Sorry Peg, I simply couldn’t resist,” Sousa teased and she snorted extremely ungracefully, that was about the last goddamn thing she’d expected after the scandalized look on his face in reaction to her saying that earlier today and wow, well, okay, way to catch a girl off guard and um. 

Peggy looked down at the file in her hands and hooked a thumb over her shoulder, cheeks probably as bright as her lips and the hat propped on her desk upstairs. 

“I should. Um. Take this to James,” she managed in a stroke of rare eloquence, taking three steps backwards, and most definitely not running in her heels straight for the door. She spun back around at the threshold, opening her mouth to say something only she really had no idea what and she promptly sucked in a breath and closed it again, darting straight for the elevators. 

Daniel smiled to himself, turning to shuffle back through the files he didn’t need at all. 

 

Peggy was sitting in an absolute daze at her desk when of all people, Jack Thompson had to walk by, taking one look at her face and pausing to raise unimpressed eyebrows in her direction. 

“The hell happened to you?”

“Daniel…” she murmured nonsensically, staring at nothing and trying to figure out what the hell any of this was supposed to mean. 

“Daniel what?” Jack prompted and she was speaking entirely on automatic at this point which was not the best idea. 

“He um.” She caught herself just in time, although from the expectant look it wasn’t quite in time enough. And here she was, stammering in front of these men she'd talked circles around just yesterday. “He...told me something, very. Captivating. Surprising.” 

And suddenly Thompson was very much so interested. 

“What did he tell you?”

Okay well, clearly, she wasn’t going to tell Jack Thompson of all people what happened-- although. Although this might be the perfect opportunity to try and befriend him again, strangely enough. There were odder things, than twisting an unexpected kiss into a refound friendship with your best friend’s mortal enemy, were there not?

“Jack, I really do try to make a habit not to snitch on my friends. You know I _never_ meant to hurt you.” The daze was entirely gone now, one hand curled sincerely on the edge of her desk as she looked up at him. Jack was perfectly quiet. 

She waited patiently, holding her breath as he looked down, tapped the edge of her desk once.

“So whenever it’s me to throw under the bus, you’ve got no problems but the second that Sousa--”

Fuck, that backfired. 

“No, it’s nothing like that.” She shot up out of her chair, grabbing Thompson’s forearm before he could take off in a hissy fit of anger. “I swear, Jack, it’s not like that.”

The phone on her desk rang. Of all times, of all fucking things, it had to be right now, this exact moment, that the phone on her desk rang, while she was pleading up at Jack Thompson to please just forgive her, please just understand she was so _so_ sorry. 

“You should get that, Marge. Maybe another one of your friends has a secret to tell, maybe you can chose to keep that one instead of mine again,” he hissed and Peggy tugged his arm, begging for him to just listen.

“Jack--”

“Answer it, Carter. You gotta start doing your job sometime, right?” His arm yanked out of her grip and pissed blonde was stalking off before she could so much as call after him. 

She let out a very, very aggravated high-pitched sigh and snatched the phone of its cradle. 

“ _What_ ,” she snapped and knowing her luck today, it’d be her boss or Washington D.C. or something, but for some reason she got the slightest break in the drama shit storm and of course, thankfully and quite unfortunately, it was Howard on the other line. 

“You threatened my _cars_??”

“I’m not telling him!!! I’m not!!” It was damn near hysteric and this entire half of the room turned to look at her, curious gazes and shocked faces. “Hold on a damn second, I’m moving to another phone.” 

She was way too pissed to keep her voice down, slamming the phone back in its cradle and marching down the center aisle all pissed off and stalking heels. 

The moment she swung around the gigantic board the boys for whatever stupid reason decided to keep in the middle of the walkway at the front of the room she nearly ran right into Bucky Barnes, of all fucking people. 

He smoothly slid to the side, just barely avoiding her shoulder as that pouty mouth opened in fiery amusement,

“Woah-oh, Peg, who pissed in your cereal?”

“Howard Stark,” she grit, kept right on stalking past him and Bucky made a sympathetic face, waving her goodbye cheekily. 

“Wish you luck! He’s one hell of a pisser!”

Yes, she was fucking aware. She ignored the comment and the stare from Agent Yauk as she shoved past him too, chin up and heels clicking like bullets as she scoped out an empty interrogation room down the hall without making it look like that’s exactly what she was doing. 

The minute she walked past one without either a waiting suspect or anyone in the listening room she was ducking inside, picking up the phone on the desk and trying to be polite as possible as she asked Rose to connect her back with Howard.

The second the line connected with a click she was shouting back into it, in the middle of an empty interrogation viewing room a hallway and a half away from where Steve and Bucky and Daniel and Jack could overhear.

“He does _not_ deserve to be dragged into all of this drama!”

“Peg, he’s already in the middle of it. The very center of all of it.” 

“Stop it, stop calling me, I’m going to have Rose put you on permanent block--”

“You can’t do this! Why could you possibly be acting this difficult?”

“He’s got so much in his life, I can’t that away from him! The way he feels about Steve--”

“What do you mean the way he feels about Steve?” 

Peggy froze. And just like that. Shit.

“...they’ve been best friends since forever,” Howard continued slowly and Peggy lifted the phone away from her ear, staring at it in perfect silence. 

When she lifted it back to her ear she still didn’t have the words. Jack Thompson was. Right, by god he was right about her, she somehow managed to fuck up every single person’s life in this institution--

“Peggy, what’s going on?”

She could fool a lot of people but super genius super playboy Howard Stark was not one of them. Strained and echo-y, it was too late to back outta this one now. 

“Howard...you know how. You and I feel about Steve?” 

“...yes.”

“I’m. Fairly certain that...Bucky feels that way too. Actually um. But. Significantly stronger?”

There was a pause and she could hear a whirring machine in the background shutting off with a sad little sound. For once, for one second, she’d actually somehow managed to stun Howard Stark into silence. Silent enough to stop talking about their damn Project Italy for three seconds.

She held her breath the entire time the noises in the background fuddled to a stop. She could just picture him taking off his goggles from yelling into the phone Jarvis was holding out quietly, hair sticking on end from the most recent explosion as he stared at his buzzing projects. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” he finally said and she finally sucked in a breath, looking up at the dim ceiling. “Everybody can’t get enough of that sunshine, huh?”

“Apparently.”

“Hmm. The Howling Commando rumors were right then. Oh boy, Morita and Dernier are gonna be mad as hell about losing their twenty bucks--”

“Rumors?” Twenty bucks?

“Oh yeah. All the boys have this running tally on which half of Rogers and Barnes is in love with the other and who’s gonna fess up first. Most everybody is on unrequited Barnes, and I guess they turned out to be right. Although if he still hasn’t fessed, I don’t get the two hundred I bet back…”

Of course. Of course, the one time she’s being serious about something he’s spattering off on another one of his stupid millionaire bets like this wasn’t the _lives_ of their _best friends_ and national _warheroes_ they were talking about here.

“This is a big deal, Howard,” she scolded and the eyeroll was quite audible over the phone. “Not everybody has the...freedoms that you do. Your money can make anything go away before the scandal even starts. Bucky and Steve don’t have that luxury.” 

“They’ll be fine. They’ll get their heads outta their asses eventually. Or well, if Rogers felt the same way, _in_.”

“Howard!”

“What? You know they’d both be a hell of a lot more stable if they were well. _Together._ ” 

“I’d like to think so, but it’s _quite_ unlikely Steve feels... _that_ way. Even if he did, by some miracle, they’re fighting quite badly right now. _Quite_ badly. And Bucky’s damn near in tears about it ‘oll.” 

“Aww. Aw, Peg, I’m sorry. That’s why you didn’t wanna tell him about the serum?”

“Just one of the reasons but a significant one, yes.”

“...okay. Listen, I know I’m one hell of a scientific genius, one hell of a friend, and I still think he deserves to know about all this. But I’m also one hell of a romantic, and I’m about the last person you’re catching standin’ in the way of love.”

“You’re one hell of an idiot,” she corrected but the relief rushing through her was enough to collapse against the desk, hand covering her forehead as Howard rattled off again. 

“Okay, we need a new battle strategy. If we’re not gonna tell him anytime soon, we have to put a security detail on him. I’ll employ Mr. Jarvis right away.”

“Mr. Jarvis? He’s hardly a spy!”

“He’s indiscreet,” Howard defended and Peggy’s curls were going to entirely unravel from how much she was shaking her head in this conversation.

“Handling your affairs is not indiscreet! Bucky’s going to notice him inside of ten _minutes_.”

“Of course he won’t, have a little faith, Peg.” 

There were lots of things she had faith in. Steve Rogers being the primary one, and Mr. Jarvis’ spying capabilities being the positively last one. 

But Howard knew now, and had rolled with it remarkably smoothly which she supposed wasn’t _that_ surprising considering his own quite formidable crush, but. At least this time she hadn’t ruined positively everything by spilling a secret that wasn’t hers to tell. 

Hopefully though, it really would be for his own good. Quite hopefully. 

 

Surprised was a bit of an understatement as Bucky suddenly swept a stack of files aside and propped up on the edge of Steve’s desk. Steve looked up, setting down his pencil carefully as Bucky gave him a little smile. 

“Hey, pal. How’re you doing?” 

“I’m...I’m doing okay, thanks for asking. How are you?”

Bucky shrugged, looking contemplatively over Steve’s head at the surrounding bullpen. 

“It’s not too bad here. I thought it’d be all stuffy middle-aged white guy suits but it’s not. Hell, it’s actually more dramatic than the diner is.” His lips twisted up in amusement and Steve huffed, forcing himself to look away from Bucky’s damn mouth. 

More dramatic. That was the damn understatement of the century. 

“Worst part though, is these people keep telling me about cases - Virginia, Russia, files they’ve found and things they’re studying…” Bucky leaned in close, dropping his voice low between just the two of them and Steve was a spider in a web, couldn’t look away from that cocked eyebrow and amused twinkle if he fucking tried. “...and I gotta keep this eternally surprised look on my face like I don’t already know everything they’re saying.” 

He was teasing Steve. Almost. Almost flirting, if there was anything like that between them which there wasn’t and Steve should’ve glanced around the bullpen too, shrugged it off all nonchalant but he was still staring up at Bucky, eyes wide and unblinking as a little smile curled on his face in return. 

“It’s not my fault, Buck. It wasn’t like you’d take no for an answer every time I’d say somethin’s top secret.” 

A dozen times he’d come home with a case file and Bucky’d just given him that look, that pretty little grin or raised eyebrow until Steve slid it over. Yeah, he was weak as hell, always had been when it came to that smile. Which did not. Mean anything. 

Especially when Bucky was giving him an even brighter smile right now. 

“I’m no good at taking no for an answer. Just like somebody else I happen to know,” Bucky teased, head tipping to one side and Steve’s cheeks were warm, his chest was warm, Bucky was perched happily on his desk and smiling down at him all affectionate and that’s exactly when Jack fucking Thompson walked by. 

Bucky looked up, straightening as he saw him coming and the smile curled up a little higher on one side, sweetness all exchanged for mischief. 

A reaching hand and Bucky snatched Jack’s tipped hat off his head, putting it on his own with the prettiest moonbeam smile. Steve wanted to be sick. If he’d thought his stomach hurt earlier in the lobby that was nothing to Bucky’s shiny toe kicking up absently against the side of his chair as he smiled up at Jack under the brim of that stolen hat. 

“Hey there,” Jack interjected, reaching over to snatch it back. Bucky leaned out of the way, laughing, leaning hard enough to almost topple on Steve so of course Steve shot up a hand, carefully grabbing onto Bucky’s arm to keep him from falling sideways. 

“Stevie, I should get a hat like this, don’t you think?” He straightened and swiveled Steve’s way to hollow out his cheeks, making that overexaggerated model face he did to make Steve laugh whenever they shared a bathroom mirror, peering at him gorgeous and cheeky from under the brim of the hat. 

Fuck. That wasn't-- 

Steve instantly let go of Buck’s arm, subconsciously brushing a hand for the bangs he didn’t have anymore, hand stuttering as he smoothed it over the stiff blonde wave instead, pretending he couldn’t feel Jack’s mild glare from over Bucky’s smooth shoulders. 

The glare was a little more than mild. Jack hated him, fucking hated him and Bucky was sitting there on Steve’s desk between them like a smiling sweet little buffer, Jack’s hat on his head as he teased Steve, comfortable and perfectly happy like he had no goddamn idea what’d happened between them and. 

Bucky should’ve been the one in the SSR in the first place. He was the one with the smarts, the people skills, he was the one who wouldn’t’ve fucked everything up so damn fast and frankly it was amazing Jack hadn’t gotten Steve fired yet--

Why...hadn’t he? Why hadn’t Jack written him up? Why hadn’t...Duley fired him? 

Wait. Wait, hold on, Chief Duley hadn’t fired him. He was still here. Chief had actually given him a nod on his way in this morning. Steve’d forgotten entirely about their assignment Thursday night. Duley had taken Friday off and they’d been so busy decoding an influx of documents for the new understaffed LA-based SSR office that he hadn’t even seen Thompson. It’d entirely slipped his mind. 

It being the assignment he’d skipped out on, ditched Jack in that bar by himself when they were supposed to be meeting a lead and. Duley had _nodded_ at him this morning, Steve was still sitting here, and that made absolutely zero sense.

Unless Thompson had written his name on the report. He had absolutely no reason to save Steve’s job - actually, had a million reasons for the opposite - but. He had. 

He wasn’t burning up with jealousy and the way Bucky was looking at him, Steve was staring over Buck's shoulder straight at Jack, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and why in hell he’d do something like that for Steve after all the awful shit Steve had done to him. 

It could’ve been years or milliseconds before Jack took his hat back, saying something to Bucky that Steve didn’t even attempt to register, all he saw was Bucky smile with his reply, not so much as inching to get off Steve’s desk, legs swinging youthful and content. 

Then Thompson was walking away, gray hat back snug on his head as the bullpen’s glass doors closed behind him and Steve’s eyes finally cut down to stare at his desk. 

He had no fucking clue what to do with that. 

Bucky’s voice echoed something and reality finally snapped back into place as Steve looked up, shocked right back into the world with those sharp crystal eyes. 

“Hm?” He managed. Bucky’s smile hadn’t faded and Steve’d never been more confused in his life.

A hand clapped on his shoulder and Steve rocked with the weight, warmth, familiarity of it. 

“I’ll be at my desk if you need me.” 

“Buck, it’s three feet behind me,” Steve pointed out and Bucky’s fingers dug in a little deeper over his shoulder, rubbing over tense muscle with that unbreakable twinkle. 

“Aren’t I always?” 

Steve rolled his eyes and Bucky patted him congenially, hopping down off Steve’s desk and taking the literal three foot walk to his chair the row behind Steve’s. 

Hmm yeah, okay, he had no idea what the fuck was going on. 

He was pretty sure he could say Buck didn’t hate him at this point, Bucky left him notes and threw an arm around his shoulders walking him home from karaoke and they’d only seen each other once this weekend between Bucky’s dancing and diner schedule and Sousa inviting Steve to lunch and Angie coming over for awhile to ask Steve suggestions on her outfit but the dinner he’d sat down to Sunday night with Buck was kinda nice, they talked about the upcoming Dodgers season and plans for Christmas.

They didn’t talk about Steve kissing Jack. Bucky hadn’t mentioned it at all and Steve would think he was just pretending it’d never happened except that he and Jack were _friends_.

It was confusing as hell. Really, really, confusing as hell. 

 

Barnes organized it today: that time had rolled around and they all met down in the lobby to walk to lunch together. 

Peggy went bright red as Bucky rounded the corner with Daniel in tow and she kept blushing the entire walk over while Buck chattered enough to fill the silence from the rest of them and what a pack they must look like, Barnes and Sousa leading the way with Peggy and Steve shooting each other confused and vaguely stressed glances behind. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t think she could sit next to him and keep a straight face, it was just that it’d literally _just_ happened and she didn’t even know what it meant yet and she was a little overwhelmed still and Steve looked all contemplative and quiet too and she hadn’t actually spent time with both Steve and Bucky after Barnes had confessed that he was in love with Steve and there was that now too, that tension in the air that she fucking knew, every time he turned to blue eyes with that little smile, everything he was hiding behind it and. 

It was just a lot. 

Sousa was a great guy, he really was. If Peggy had to chose one of the boys tomorrow, he was a good one to pick. She probably _should_ chose one of the boys because it’d all gotten quite ridiculous in this clusterfuck of confusing relationships and she really did quite like him but she didn’t know if she liked him the _most_ , there was so much going on and she was under. 

A lot of stress ! A lot. 

To top it all off, the moment they walked into the diner the very first thing she saw was Edwin Jarvis, tall and in these ridiculous sunglasses - indoors, honestly? - peering up over a newspaper, nose poking out over the top as his foot tapped extremely loudly from the corner booth. 

Peggy groaned quietly and tipped her head back to stare up at the ceiling, ask it what the hell she'd done to deserve this nonsense in her life. 

Of course, she was nowhere near the only one to notice. Rogers leaned over, voice dropped to a whisper in the company, “Isn’t that Howard’s butler?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Unfortunately. Hush. Howard thinks it’s a good idea to put surveillance on James, which I can agree with but um. Well. As you can see.” 

One of Steve’s dark eyebrows went up but he shrugged with a little nod of agreement so at least that was half a thing less to worry about. 

“You guys have Christmas specials already?” Daniel was saying, handing his menu back to Bucky, who’d miraculously switched into his uniform already. 

“I know! It’s not for another three weeks! And it hasn’t even snowed yet this year.”

They chatted for another little while before Bucky was off for the kitchen and Steve struck up conversation with Sousa, discussing Barnes’ theories on the metal armor and such while Peggy propped her chin on her hand and swirled a red-painted pinky in her tea, gazing off around Steve’s broad shoulders and over Daniel’s dark swooped hair to the bubbly waitress shooting a million smiles a minute in the background. 

She’d been so surprised, when her mind had automatically added Angie to the list of potential pairs the other day, clumped right in with the rest of them. It wasn’t….that surprising at all, if she thought about it. 

Boys were exasperating. Quite, quite, exasperating, even sweet honest ones like Steve Rogers. 

She’d spent so long trying to find this fit, this impossible man who’d both respect her and make her happy, saw her as an equal and a confidant and someone who could be brilliant and have fun and still be beautiful, y’know, all the things that men usually weren’t. 

When, all along, Angie’d already treated her that way. Angie’d been that way from the very first day they’d met. 

Well. When she put it like that, it seemed rather obvious. Stupidly obvious. Why was she bothering with all of the dramatic boys when she already had the kind of person she wanted to be with in her life? 

The way she felt about Angie wasn’t the same kind of way she felt about men, but. It wasn’t any lesser of a way, just different, and. There was always a chance Angie felt that way too. If she treated Peggy as wonderfully as she did there was most definitely a chance. Although there was also a chance she only meant it as a friend too, and if she did, well. So be it, Peggy wasn’t planning to lose her friendship anytime soon either. 

Maybe it was Barnes’s confession that finally had her sitting here contemplating Martinelli’s pretty smile or maybe it was the flush still on her cheeks from the kiss Sousa had stolen just hours ago or maybe she’d’ve had all these same thoughts today without any of that and she really didn’t know but here she was, wondering if maybe the choice she’d never thought she’d had was the only clear choice to make. 

 

There were a few things that all kinda tumbled together and added up to it. Steve and Angie had spent quite a bit of time together lately, which she’d most definitely noticed. Her two closest friends both unavailable because they’d been spending time together instead. 

Not that she was worried, it was just. Steve needed a friend and Angie was happily a simple one.

“Can you sing that one about the carving on the tree?” 

“Mhmm. Oh how’s it start...there's a tree in the meadoow, with a streeam drifting byyy. And carved upon that tree, I see, _I love you till I diiee_.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun and Steve’s squint loosened up, a shiver running down from the cold and nearly jumping his pencil across the light strokes of paper. 

Angie’s eyes were closed so she didn't notice, Steve's bundled jacket under her head as she sang up at the sky.

“I will al-ways remember the love in your eyee, the daay you carved upon that treee, _I love you till I die_.”

She was still clutching his first drawing to her chest, fingers curled around the edges like it was already in technicolor up on billboards. _It’s beautiful_ , she’d told him, eyes watering up like those girls in the movies and Steve just smiled, glad he’d chosen to draw her that way. 

_So are you, Ang, and one day there’s gonna be fellas linin’ up around the corner to do your sketch_.

“But further on down lovers' lane, a silhouette I seee. I know you're kissing some-one else, I wish that it were mee.”

It was nice, just drawing up here on the roof and not worrying about anything, letting sweet music drift over and shape the gray on his page. That was his favorite way to draw, although the voice that usually sang for him was quite a bit deeper. 

“By that tree in the meadow, my thoughts always liee. And where’er you go, you'll always know, I love you till I die.”

He didn’t miss Bucky as much when Angie was singing. Well. He still missed Bucky a lot, but with the quiet songs drifting over the peaceful moments she carved into the hellish busy-ness of everything the sharp pain in his chest shifted into a dull, livable ache. 

That terrible ache. 

 

They could both see it on him. Maybe he let down his guard around them or maybe they were less afraid of emotions than all the men, but both Peggy and Angie saw that ache. 

Angie kept inviting Steve in for pie, it'd gotten to the point that he’d started this direct Pavlovian response with the smell of pie and Angie’s bright smiles, forgetting about it all for a little while. 

But it wasn't enough, to forget for a little while. Steve was stuck in this terrible rut, missionless and useless and fighting with his best friend and the walls and anything else that would let him bleed without bleeding all over everyone else and the very least Peggy could do was remind him how goddamn important he was. 

It was obvious, but she finally figured out how to send Steve Rogers back on a mission. It'd be killing two birds with one stone, which did make her feel a tad selfish but well, if she had to play that ridiculous role of damsel in distress she might as well get something out of it. 

But it didn't even cross her mind until Tuesday afternoon, walking into the lobby of the Griffith and quite surprised to find Angie and Steve propped on the wooden waiting bench, engaged deep in conversation. 

Well, actually, very shallow conversation they were just talking about quite passionately. 

“...but the worst part was the floors after,” Steve was complaining and Angie reached out to whack him with an agreeing hand. 

“All the glitter and sequins that just _litter_ that stage, stickin’ on so thick--”

“--to the soles of the dance shoes, making them downright slippery,” Steve interrupted with a smile and Angie clapped her hands once. 

“Exactly! You know how many auditionees I've seen fall?”

“Oh you should've seen me the minute I got backstage after my first few performances. I almost squashed the entire left flank of high-kickers as I fell. Not to mention cleaning them after,” he added on and Angie gave him the most sympathetic nod Peggy couldn't help but laugh behind the back of her hand. 

They both heard and spun towards her anyways, lighting up with twin guilty smiles. Her two brightest golden sunshine streaks. 

“Peg! You, uh.”

“Remember your days as a dancing monkey quite well, y'know,” she smiled and Angie hopped up off the bench, tugging Steve with her and planting a little kiss on his cheek. “I must say though, I hadn't expected to find you discussing them so vigorously with our new loveliest showgirl here.”

Angie scoffed and waved a hand but the smile on her face begged to differ. 

“I dunno about that, Peg. You seen Barnes in sequins?” 

“I can't say that I have.” And what a damn shame. By the look on Steve's face, he thought so too. Speaking of which. “Actually, Steve, that reminds me - will you have a moment sometime this evening to speak with me? I have. A few things on my mind.”

“Course, Peg,” Steve smiled and at least he had that, that easy joy from Angie that Peggy could quite admit she was more partial to than even her evening tea. She'd never thought she'd find a person whose company was more desirable for relaxation and unwinding than old fashioned English tea, but here she was. 

Perhaps not the best way to start her speech, though. Especially not when she was giving it to one of the best impromptu-speech-writers she’d ever heard. 

Steve was sitting on the edge of her bed, hands clasped in his lap as she checked the hallway one more time and locked her door, spinning back around with a tight smile. 

It wasn’t as though it was the end of the world, and while she was pretty confident Bucky would take better to the news, maybe this would be _four_ birds with one stone. She could get advice, let Steve know she was on his side, make him feel useful again, and maybe find out how he felt on the Bucky Barnes front. 

“Are you...nervous?” Steve asked, kinda incredulously and Peggy wrung her hands together, glancing over her shoulder from where she’d been checking outside the window. 

“Me? No, I’m never. No, of course not.” 

“Peggy...what’s going on? Is it. Is it something to do with. Um. With Bucky’s serum? Did something happen?”

“No! No, nothing like that, it’s just. It’s got nothing to do with him, I mean, at least not directly, one could argue there is a correlation upon there somewhere--”

“Peg.”

“--after all they do work together and I would bet if there were anything there he would know, but he does have so much on his plate right now, as you very well know--”

“Carter!” Steve raised his voice to interrupt and they both instantly fell hushed as it echoed, a moment’s slip to pray Ms. Fry didn’t hear. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he whispered and she waved a hand of dismissal, staring down the silent door for another three seconds before she finally turned back to him and opened up red lips that felt damn near about sealed together, everything rushing out all at once. 

“I think there’s a fairly high possibility that I’ve go’a crush on Angie.” 

Blue eyes blinked twice and Peggy stayed perfectly still, watching the long lashes interrupt the stunned gaze. 

“Martinelli?” He finally managed and the hovering tension broke, heels thudding on the carpet as she swept over to the bed and plopped down beside him. 

“Yes, Martinelli, I don’t happen to know anyone else by that name.” 

“A...crush.”

“Yes, a crush, and I know it’s not conventional or anything but I really don’t know what to do about it, there’s just so much that could go wrong and I don’t want to lose her friendship, or anyone else’s at the office, but you’ve always known just the right thing to do and Steve, I need your help.” 

Maybe she was laying it on a little thick by taking his hand but she was being honest, there were quite a few things that could go wrong, although frankly, they weren’t worrying her nearly as much as she made it sound. Either way, she did respect Steve’s opinions, he was the most brave, honest, tactical person she’d ever known and with their moral compasses so aligned, she really couldn’t imagine who else to take this to. 

Besides, saying it out loud? To Steve? All of the smiles and blushes and noticing little thoughts suddenly seemed like quite a bit more. It was more than just in her head now, and it was starting to sink in. What that would mean. What...it might be like to be with someone as wonderful, kind, as Angie was. 

She had no idea why it’d never crossed her mind until recently. It was so obvious, such a simple solution to the hellish love septangle going on that she really couldn’t picture any better option. 

That was, if Angie felt the same. Which she had no idea about, it wasn’t every day your best friend wanted to become something more. 

Although, well, that was why she was talking to Steve about this. 

“And you’re...sure,” he said slowly and Peggy rolled her lips in, nodding as she squeezed Steve’s hand. 

“Fairly sure, yes.”

“What about…” He looked positively lost, mouth opening and closing a few times and suddenly it hit her. 

“Us? Steve, I didn’t think. I mean, the timing’s been all wrong, and--”

“No, no. That’s not what I was gonna. I know, and I wasn’t even thinking about me, but. But she’s a dame, Peg, and. So are you.” 

She studied him for a moment, taking in everything from the way he was gripping her hand tight to the knitted concern between those eyebrows, concern that was even deeper than the surprise or confusion. Well, that was interesting, but it didn’t tell her much. Besides that he was scared, of that possibility, maybe for himself too. 

“I know. I just…” Peggy pursed her mouth, trying to figure out the best way to say this but she wasn’t sure there really was any way but the honest, blatant truth. “...I don’t think it matters.” 

“Why wouldn’t it?” More of that shock, almost appalled now and she shook her head once, brown curls tumbling. 

“Why would it?”

“Because. People just. Don’t, feel that way, for--”

“I know how I feel, Steve. And I’m hardly the first, there were plenty of people during the war--”

“Not _plenty_ , and it was the war, and perfectly hushed, just because the Commandos joked--”

“It’s not just them! And it’s not crazy. I would think _you_ of all people would understand that.”

“ _Me_? Why the hell would _I_?”

“Because you know better than anyone how easily society can put labels on things! Was it not you who agreed how easily people are locked in boxes? You don’t choose how your heart feels, and personally, I have no idea how _you_ , Steve Rogers, are repulsed.”

“I am _not_ repulsed. I just think it’s dangerous, Peg.” 

“So is being a spy and jumping off tanks but that neither stopped either of us!”

“It’s not that simple,” he started low and she squeezed his hand hard, shutting that pretty mouth right up.

“Yes, Steve, it is.”

A beat, then three passed and Steve finally sucked in a breath, looking down at his lap and shaking his head once. 

“I guess. I mean. I don’t get how you can be so….nonchalant about all of this.” Blue flicked up to hers again, under those long batting sad lashes and Peggy’s heart ached a little in her chest. 

“Steve...it’s not the end of the world. So society doesn’t like it. They also don’t like the _majority_ of things I do daily, I hardly see how adding a girl to that mix could make that much of a difference.”

“Peggy!”

“Oh, don’t scold me, you wouldn’t’ve said a damn thing if I’d've said boy instead. Sincerely though, you grew up in one of the most... _diverse_ places in New York with a reputation for that sort of behavior, I thought you’d be quite a bit more open to the idea.” 

“It’s just...complicated,” Steve muttered under his breath, shoving a free hand through blonde hair and cursing as he got his fingers stuck in gel, hand retreating right back out as he lifted his head and offered her a small smile. “I am happy for you, though, Peg. Do you know if Angie...feels the same way?”

“Well based upon all the double dates we’ve gone on, the company we’ve shared...I think there’s a chance. Which is actually why I wanted to talk to you about it.” 

“She hasn’t said anything to me, Peg, I’m sorry.” 

“I was fairly certain she hadn’t, otherwise I’d guess you would’ve told me. And reacted a bit differently when I told you. But you two are quite close these days, would you...mind? Testing the waters and whatnot?”

“You want me to talk to her?”

“If you haven’t got anything else important on your plate, I really would love your help.” 

She gave him her best big brown doe eyes which was actually quite a bit harder than you’d expect, she just wasn’t very familiar with the damn damsel in distress role. Although so far, Steve had been quite more distressed by this conversation than she had. 

Internalized homophobia or honest surprise? Was something going on in his fight with Bucky that made him feel squeamish around the idea? Did he know how Bucky felt, and didn’t feel the same way, and was trying to find a way to handle their change in dynamic? 

This really had been quite a bit less informative than she’d been hoping for. 

But Steve was giving her his honest, trying smile now and at least that counted for something. 

“Sure, Peg. I'll do what I can. I have no idea how to even approach asking something like that, but.”

“You never have been too good at talking to dames anyways,” she agreed with a squint and Steve’s smile split wider, hands releasing to shove her shoulder playfully. 

“I talk to you just fine.” 

“Mmm, debatable.” 

“You’re...debatable,” he retorted lamely and she smiled bright, popping to her feet and pulling Steve to his too. 

“Quite clearly, it appears so.” He shook his head, fond and amused as Peggy unlatched and lifted up the window for him. “Now, Prince Charming, if you wouldn’t mind scaling back down my tower…”

One leg lifted over the sill as he shot her a playful glare, glancing down at the fall. 

“The things I do for a princess that’s gonna end up with her handmaiden instead,” Steve huffed and she laughed, leaning out the window with her elbows propped on the edge. 

“Hopefully. Although I do think Ang would be quite offended at you calling her a handmaiden.” 

“Probably,” he agreed, strained as he tiptoed for footing on the next layer of brick, glancing up at her one last time with that crooked, real smile she’d been waiting for since she’d brought him into her room. “But Buck objects like hell to being called a sidekick and that never stopped me either.” 

She laughed brightly, shooting him a little wave as he dropped, sliding down the window before the draft could ruin the piles of files stacked all over her room. Well. That could’ve gone better. Could’ve gone a lot worse too, but. That was basically everything in their lives nowadays, wasn’t it?

 

There were twelve open files scattered over his desk, the 1941 correspondence Bucky'd told them about coupled with all the files from the Russia mission and Sousa’s spine was starting to hurt from how long he’d been hunched over them but he was so damn close, he _knew_ there was something in these damn number lists. 

The same sequences kept popping up, those identifications on the shipping crates that were spray painted over when they were dumped with all these random digits in between and there was a pattern there, he just couldn’t place--

Wait. Wait, all those fours. Maybe the fours weren’t fours, maybe they were _forties_ with different numbers on the end. Were they ever followed by anything higher than a five?

...no, no they weren’t. So those were years, those had to be years. The two numbers before, were any of those higher than twelve? No, no, they weren’t. Shit, these were dates, these were totally shipment dates. 

The red pen got to circling and the next thing he knew he was calling Rogers over, shoving a yellow notepad of dates at him and tapping his pencil on his desk as the blue eyes furrowed. 

“Any of those dates look familiar? I mean, I know it’s a long shot, but as an officer you had more access to the Allies’ plans that other soldiers did and if they don’t mean anything I’ll completely understand, and I’m still not sure how it ties in with the shipment crate patterns, actually I’m not sure it does, but--”

“Daniel, Daniel. Slow down. I do recognize these dates.”

“You do?” His breath caught in his throat because fuck, this might be their first big break in the case that lead somewhere besides creepy speculations on metallic enhancements. 

“Yeah, they’re...where the hell did you get this?” Steve waved the paper and Daniel swept a hand out to indicate his entire desk. 

“Went through hell decoding it from all of this. Crossed off the shipment crate codes so the numbers started to make some sense, then I was looking for patterns and pulled out the fours which left those dates, with all this other nonsense around it I am nowhere _near_ deciphering.” 

“Sousa...these dates are the dates of every mission the Howling Commandos pulled off in the war.” 

“They’re the… _what_?”

“Why the hell would the Russians be tracking the Commandos? How did they even get this? Those missions were classified, all of this is supposed to be classified. And some of them were off the books entirely, like that one in December ‘44…” Steve flipped through a few pages and then his finger was jamming into the 08-12-44 Daniel had sketched down. “...which is right here, what the _hell_ is going on?”

Daniel just stared wide eyed at the list Steve was holding, the files strewn all over his desk. 

“I have...no idea. Wait, hold on. Here, there’s the original sheet, with the dates crossed out. Do those numbers and letters around it mean anything?”

Both of them were perfectly silent as Steve scanned down the mess of a page, straight translated Cyrillic with numbers in between and not a single goddamn space or divider to be seen.

“I think these might be...do you have a map? Daniel, these might be coordinates, pull up a map--”

Steve tossed the papers down and shot to his desk, dragging his chair over loudly across the bullpen and perching on the edge, shuffling through the next pile of papers Daniel handed him. 

“Here, okay, look up the coordinates for 56 degrees - that’s a fourteen, so...N for North, 11-5 is...eleven degrees East. That’s for the April ‘44 mission we did, in the--”

“--Danish Straits,” Daniel filled in, looking up from where he was pointing on the map.

“Holy shit.” Steve sat back in his chair and Daniel did too, both of them just blinking at the page in Steve’s hands. 

“Do you have anymore originals like this one? Maybe they didn’t just follow the Commandos, maybe they had an eye on lots of squads.” The hopeful note in Steve’s voice was kinda terribly heartbreaking and Daniel shuffled back through the mess of papers, triumphantly pulling out the other digit compilation he hadn’t even touched yet. 

“Okay, so we apply the same logic, these are dates--” A scratching pencil and Daniel wheeled his chair backwards, tossing up a hand to wave over Thompson who’d just walked in. “--I don’t recognize these dates, by the way. So maybe it is another squad. And then these have got to be coordinates - the hell are those, though?”

“This looks like a mess,” Jack said cheerily as he strolled up and Steve didn’t even look up. “What are you two working on?”

“I think we’ve found something,” Sousa explained, because it sure as hell didn’t look like Rogers was gonna fill him in. “See, here, this is a list of all the Howling Commandos’ missions: coordinates, dates, and whatever the hell that slew of numbers is, we haven’t decoded that yet.” 

“The Russians were tracking the Howling Commandos?”

“Apparently. We’re applying the same code to a second sheet--”

“Wait, wait, I think I’ve got something.” Steve scooted his chair closer, laying out the three sheets side by side on the tornado of Daniel’s desk, pointing out a sequence he’d circled five or six times on the page, always after the double-crossed-out dates. “See this? I think it’s coordinates too, but they keep repeating. I don’t know a squad that would have missions at the same place over and over, so maybe it’s a base of some kind. But if I’m right, I’m pretty sure the 56’35 lands it in Russia. Meaning it’s not one of _our_ bases.” 

“Why would they put one of their bases on a list of missions? That makes no sense.”

“...unless they’re shipping something,” Daniel filled in slowly and suddenly there were a pile of papers flying off his desk as he scrambled for his notes about the crates. “Steve, if they’re using numbers to substitute for letters, what would S be?”

“Nineteen, which keeps repeating right after those coordinates.”

“Followed by 89465?"

“Yeah, that’s. How did you--”

“These are shipping records, that’s the serial that’s stamped on those weird identical crates I found. So those repeating coordinates? That’s _got_ to be one of their bases.” 

“Holy shit,” Thompson said and all three of them watched as Sousa pinned a big red dot on the Russian coordinates, the base they'd somehow just cracked from a page of numbers. 

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Alright, let’s take it to Duley. Looks like we’ve got a weekend trip ahead of us, boys.” 

 

Or, y’know, their Chief could take one glance at their work and shoo them off. 

“The hell is that? So you found some coordinates that match your boxes, we can’t fund a full blown mission on a _hunch_.”

“A hunch? This is obvious evidence,” Steve started and Chief Duley held up a hand to stop him before he could go off. 

“We’re not wasting manpower and money until you have proof. Get me a solid lead and I’ll send you all chasing your tails around to Russia again. Last time didn’t get us anything but more questions, and the higherups are already fussing about the resources we’ve been using with absolutely no results to show for it.”

“Chief,” Thompson started and he shook his head before any of them could keep protesting. 

“That’s the end of that conversation. Get me something more than some numbers on a paper, or I’d be worried about more than whether or not those coordinates are hack.”

 

“He _ignored_ you??”

“Peggy--”

“No, Daniel, this _is_ a solid lead! The hell else does he want?”

“I don’t know, Carter, but there’s nothing we can do about it.” 

There was nothing they could do about it?

Nothing they could do about it?

And that’s how Peggy found herself scaling an electric-wire fence around the Baltic Terminal in Brooklyn at midnight.

For godsakes, there were coordinates shipping crates from here in New York to that sketchy Russian warehouse, how could Duley expect them to sit on their asses?

Agent Peggy Carter was intended to _kick_ ass, not sit on it. So she was going to find Duley his fucking proof, if it took holding every higherup at this terminal at gunpoint until she had it. 

Or, y’know, things could go entirely the opposite of planned and she could be held at gunpoint instead. Actually, not quite. Held. 

She was a little...outnumbered, was the problem. She had one heel shoving a guy in the chest, his knife lodged in the thigh of his buddy and was spinning around to kick the third one’s legs out from under him when the shot rang out. 

There was a fourth guy, somehow smart enough to be waiting in the shadows, and it was one of his bullets that had just pierced all the way through her side. Which was fantastic, this was exactly what she needed right now, to be _injured_ on top of outnumbered. 

But if there was anything she was good at, it was fighting dirty when the fighting got tough and the next thing she knew, her heel was lodged in the guy’s windpipe and she was limping out of the terminal, gasping as she clutched the skin below her ribs. 

For nowhere near the first time in her secret spy life, Peggy found herself immediately, overwhelmingly grateful for her trusty chauffeur, Edwin Jarvis. Who was currently freaking the hell out. 

Thankfully, the Rogers-Barnes had decided to get a telephone for their apartment, because going down to the lobby to call everyone had proven to be a bit of a problem. 

Which also meant that when Jarvis was freaking out and grabbed the closest payphone, dialing frantically while Peggy groaned in the backseat of one of Howard’s cars, someone actually picked up on the other end. 

She could hear them discussing and wondered distantly which boy had picked up then Jarvis was back in the front seat telling her to hold on while Peggy tried to explain through the wincing that it was a goddamn bullet, not a grenade, she’d be perfectly fine, they could stop freaking the fuck out.

Then the next thing she knew he was pulling onto a familiar street and strong hands nearly yanked the door off Howard’s car, turning gentle and apologetic the minute they lifted up her shoulders, knees, then she was being carried across a damn sidewalk and Peggy threw her head back with a groan, registering the flash of blonde and familiar chest muscles before they were jolting her up the steps. 

“Look, the radio talk shows are right,” she huffed, a little high-pitched with pain. “Cap-Captain America comes. Rushing to the aid of the damsel in dis-- _shit_ , ow, ow--”

“Carter, stop talking,” Steve’s deep voice commanded and she attempted to lift a hand to her forehead in a messy salute. 

“Sir, yes sir, anythi-- fuck!” Peggy’s head tossed back as something pressed against the wound from behind, a familiar ceiling tipping into view. This was not her apartment, this was not her couch, Steve was talking all hushed and worried with Jarvis, who by the sound of it was _still_ freaking out and Peggy couldn’t say _why_ , it was just a little hole, she’d be perfectly fine if it didn’t puncture any organs. 

She couldn’t really tell with her eyes closed though, except suddenly there was rough hand on her face, shaking her head until she blinked blurrily up at swimming blues. 

“Peggy. Peg. Keep those pretty brown eyes open for me, okay? I can’t have you going to sleep.”

“You’re not, a nurse,” she pointed out and it didn’t sound quite right coming from her mouth, all garbled and whatnot although to be fair _everything_ sounded weird and echo-y and distant right now. 

“My mom was,” Steve told her, mouth curving up in a little smile and wow, he just had the nicest smile she’d ever seen. “Besides, I brought you here cause the best nurse I know is already on their way--”

And it was exactly that moment that something crashed - a door swinging open rather violently - and Steve’s sunny face disappeared, all long shadowed ceilings and stinging pain as she hissed, then suddenly there was another pretty face swinging into view, although this one was albeit quite a bit more pissed. 

“What the fuck!! Peggy!!!” A rough hand on her forehead, pushing curls out of the way as she registered distantly that Steve thought Bucky Barnes was the best nurse he knew, that was kinda sweet in a way, wasn’t it? “You can’t go doing this shit! You’re just as bad as Rogers with your _reckless. fuckery_. Did it go all the way through? Dear fuck, it went all the way through.”

Crystal cursed some more and Peggy turned her head on the armrest, everything spinning a little as she registered a suit jacket being shed, tie loosened and tossed to Steve, who caught both automatically, watching Bucky and answering his questions in this low hushed voice, pushing up Bucky’s other sleeve for him while Jarvis fretted and wrung his hands in the corner. 

Steve was being uncharacteristically quiet, taking off for the kitchen the minute Bucky pointed. 

Damn, Sergeant Barnes could be intimidating as hell, who knew? She’d seen him fuss over Steve, but it was a whole other ordeal to be on the receiving end of it. 

The second Steve came back in with a wet cloth and a little box Bucky was swooping down beside the couch, rolled up sleeves and pomade pushed back with a hand, looking about as dead serious as she’d ever seen him. 

“Steve, other side, help me get her shirt off.” 

“Jamees, I thought we talked. About this,” she managed with a wince and he didn’t even bother looking up at her, carefully untucking her blouse from her skirt, rolling it up slowly as Steve leaned over the back of the couch and helped him lift. “I’m quite positive I told you I wasn’t. Fuck, this kinda girl.” 

Her curls bounced as they worked the shirt off over her head and Jarvis made a very undignified sound from the other side of the room. Her lovely, holey, bloody blouse was tossed aside and goodness, her pale pink bra wasn’t exactly the most flattering, but it was covering what it needed to and there wasn’t much else she could do to protest. 

She was bleeding and just in her undergarments on the Rogers-Barnes couch and it didn’t look like she had much of an option on either of those two fronts.

“Tough shit, Carter,” Bucky bit, taking the wet cloth from a deep-red blushing Steve and wiping down the blood that’d smeared all over her skin, careful and slow as he looked for the entrance point. “You have like sixteen guys you could’ve asked to go with you and you didn’t bother to bring a single one of us??”

“Just because I’m a woman--” she started, wincing again as Bucky most definitely found the bullet hole.

“No, Peg, because everybody _needs backup_!!” He quickly swiped up the rest of the pooling blood, popping open the little tin box from Steve’s outstretched hands, snagging a needle and thread, crystal eyes on fire as he held it up to the light and threaded the needlehead. “Steve Rogers, perfect supersoldier, invincible warhero god and best damn fighter in the world still _has me_ on his _six_.” 

The crystal turned on her, glaring right down as he waved a hand and Steve handed over a bottle of whiskey. 

“What the fuck is _wrong_ with you, Carter?!”

She didn’t get a chance to answer that before Bucky was pouring alcohol over the wound and she was too busy shouting in pain to come up with something snarky in response. 

A heavy hand shoved her shoulder back down from where she was curling up against the fire and Steve finally opened his mouth, hesitant as she’d ever seen him but if there was anything Steve Rogers knew, it was how Bucky Barnes could be when someone was hurt. 

“Buck, be careful, she’s--”

“What, fucking _delicate_?” Bucky snapped, all that pent-up emotion turning right on the wide-eyed Steve. “That never fucking stopped _you_ , keep your damn mouth shut.” 

Steve’s mouth snapped back closed faster than Peggy could groan again, which said a lot because motherfucker, that hurt. 

“Besides, if she’s so damn delicate, maybe she shouldn’t go around getting herself _shot_. You wanna act tough, deal with the damn consequences, Carter.” For all the bitter and grit teeth and shouting Bucky was doing, the needle sliding into her skin was careful, remarkably skilled, and. 

It didn’t really hurt, frankly. Obviously the alcohol had, but everything he was doing past that was better than any hospital she’d been to, including the lovely, sweet nurses that had patched up her first two bullet shots in her shoulder. Which said a lot for rough soldier hands, the rougher soldier voice. 

No wonder Steve complained, it was a hell of a thing to be patched up and scolded by Bucky Barnes all in one swoop of overwhelming concern and biting bitter betrayed hurt. 

Peggy just groaned and stared up at the ceiling. As much as she appreciated being stitched up, Bucky was _still_ complaining, scolding, and she finally lifted her voice enough to interrupt over the slowly subsiding pain,

“You’re a terrible bedside nurse.” 

“Steve, go get Angie,” Bucky ordered and for the first time since she’d been shot the panic sunk in and she nearly shot upright, if it weren’t for the hand shoving her into the pillows again. 

“No, no, she’ll freak out, she thinks I work at the phone company!!” Peggy was protesting but the apartment door was already slamming shut behind Steve’s obedient heels.

Bucky shot her down a smug little shrug, tugging the stitches a little tighter before sliding the needle into her skin again.

“He’s already out the door, I don’t know what to tell you. Now that you’re not gushing blood everywhere, let me make sure none of your organs have holes in them. Tell me when you start getting dizzy, I’m gonna check the projectile route from behind. What kind’a asshole shoots a woman in her back...” 

“It’s technically my side,” she pointed out breathlessly as Bucky propped her up against a cushion and snorted. 

“Yeah, you’re just lucky you have a working liver, you ass.” 

 

The diner didn’t have a phone, so Steve well. Sprinted the entire way down the streets. He didn’t crash into any wedding shops this time, and he wasn’t barefoot either so this was a considerable improvement from the first time he’d sprinted across New York. 

His heart was pounding just as fast, though. Logically, he knew Peg had already gotten shot twice and survived both about as well as he would’ve, but Peggy was bleeding and delirious on their couch in the apartment and Bucky had flipped right into personal surgeon mode which he’d never seen when he wasn’t broken or delirious himself and it was somehow even freakier to watch Bucky like that from third person. 

So yeah, he was running a little fast, and almost spun the revolving door right off its hinges as he came bursting in to skid on checkered floors. 

Angie saw him immediately, the entire diner saw him immediately, which was just the few scraggling late-nighters cluttered around the bar for Friday night drinks. Although Angie was the only one who instantly went into concerned mode, setting down the mug of coffee she was holding to call concernedly across the distance,

“USA? Are you okay?”

Steve put one hand on the wall, managed to gasp, “ _Peggy_ ,” through heaving lungs - he’d run uh, pretty fast.

He wasn’t all that surprised that she threw down her apron and whipped around the edge of the counter, yelling over her shoulder to someone in the back that she had a family emergency, thank god she wasn’t the only one working and then Steve was running back outside, hailing them a cab because as entertaining as it’d be to throw Ang over a shoulder and run back to the apartment, he was pretty sure a cab was the most logical way to do this. Plus that meant he could slow his breathing back down before Bucky ripped into him too. 

By the time they got back to the apartment, he’d thankfully taken it from a 12 to like a 4 and Steve could actually handle Bucky at a four. Peggy even looked better, was at least dressed now, wearing a very loose button-up that Steve honestly had no idea of the owner, after they started being similar sizes again his closet and Bucky’s had somehow just...meshed. 

Regardless of who the shirt belonged to, at least the brown eyes over it were significantly more lucid now. 

Although Peggy did not look any more pleased when she was lucid. 

“What happened?” Angie gasped, dropping her bag on Steve’s foot and darting across the apartment to hover with twisting hands over the couch. 

“I got mugged,” Peggy droned dully at the ceiling, shooting evil glares at Bucky the entire time and he gave her a _tough shit_ look from where he was washing out a cloth in the kitchen sink. Sleeves rolled up, hair fucked over from trying to push back the few strands that always escaped only now it was a _lot_ of strands, shirt half unbuttoned and fingers bloody and there was absolutely zero reason in the world why he should’ve looked beautiful like that but he did and Steve was dying from where he’d frozen solid in the foyer. 

“Peggy, Jesus, why aren’t you in a hospital?” Angie dropped to her knees beside the couch, taking Peggy’s hand in hers and Steve glanced over at them, studying the slight flush on Peggy’s face, the sincere concern as Angie held her gaze and. Looked at her like that. 

Of course he’d noticed how fond they were of each other, but he’d never thought. Peggy could.

“I’m already stitched up, there’s really no point in going,” she argued and at least there was one thing Steve understood. He’d known from the minute Jarvis called. Someone was hurt, the first thing that popped in his mind was _Bucky_. Steve’d spent a lot of his life hurt and he’d learned pretty quick the best place to go for that was those scolding crystal blues. 

Bucky could probably get a job as a doctor if he went to school for a little while, or hell, he could be an E.R. nurse now, if he wanted. Steve was pretty sure he didn’t want to, and that the hospitals probably wouldn’t appreciate all their patients being yelled at and threatened for their stupidity. 

To be fair, Steve and Peggy did share a brand of, what did Bucky call it? Reckless fuckery? Yeah. That. 

But Peg didn’t look to be in near as bad'a shape as she had earlier. The pale face was almost back to normal, cupped under soft, manicured hands as Angie looked her over with knitted eyebrows. They were all still for a moment and Angie finally glanced up, pursing her mouth as she studied Bucky in the kitchen, back to Peggy’s finally quiet demeanor. 

“Do you have the stuff to make soup?” A red fingernail swept gently across Peggy’s cheek and Angie stood back up, straightening out her skirt and starting for the kitchen.

“Of course, it’s December, that’s the only thing Steve can eat all winter.” Bucky was stretching up to grab a bowl from a cabinet and Steve looked away from the muscle condensing under the thin white. Fuck that, he didn’t need to be _looking_ at Bucky like that. 

“Used to eat,” he pointed out, a little sharp but it was a lot to take, alright. It being Bucky. Like this. “I can stomach literally anything now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky agreed dubiously, piling ingredients on the counter for Angie and turning on the stove for their biggest pot with a raised eyebrow glance at his diner partner, both of them setting to work chopping vegetables. “It’s just that he _chooses_ not to eat half the shit I attempt to make.”

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Steve grumbled, plopping down on the couch beside Peggy and taking her frail hand. “I eat everything he puts in front of me.”

“Except peas,” Bucky shouted from the kitchen. “And cooked carrots, and soft cheeses, and basil, and--”

“Basil is weird as hell,” Steve shouted back and Peggy snorted from her spot on the couch, making Steve furrow his eyebrows at her. “What?”

“You two,” she said tiredly, eyes slipping closed for just a moment. “I swear, you’re married.” 

“Hey Peg, is Cream of Vegetable still your favorite? I doubt we’ve got any English butter here, but I could attempt to come close to that recipe from your mom,” Angie called in and Steve shot her a look, one eyebrow raised as brown fluttered back open. 

“And you say _we’re_ married?”

“We don’t bicker,” Peggy corrected and Steve rolled his eyes. She was right, they didn’t. They were just. Really soft around each other, which was the exact opposite of how Bucky and he were. Well. Sometimes. Sometimes they were real soft around each other. 

Which didn’t mean the same thing it apparently meant for Peggy and Angie. If Peg really did feel that way about Angie, he’d promised to help find out if Ang did too and. 

Maybe Bucky would know. He’d bet Bucky would know. 

Steve stroked a thumb over Peggy’s hand and wondered if there was any chance in hell Bucky’d noticed the way their two favorite dames looked at each other. 

 

He had. 

He had, and he figured that maybe, with the way Peggy was looking at Angie, all soft like that, like he’d never seen before...maybe he should talk to Peg about it. 

Or, well. Odds were, Steve might know. 

Considering the fact that Peggy’d almost died today and he’d never seen Martinelli so shaken in their months of diner work together, he’d say now was a good of a time as any to start acting on the damn buildup that’d been about near destroying these lives of theirs.

He pulled Steve aside as soon as Angie got the soup simmering, tipping his head for the fire escape and waiting for Steve to get up and follow before sliding the door shut behind them. 

“Can I ask you something?” Bucky said, before Steve could open his mouth because he already had those strong arms crossed over his chest like he was expecting a fight. 

“I was gonna ask you something.” Dark eyebrows furrowed and Bucky lifted a hand, indicating over his shoulder.

“It's about Peggy,” he said and Steve cocked his head, glancing over Bucky’s shoulder too. 

“Yeah, mine’s about Angie.” 

They both blinked at each other and that time Steve started before he could. 

“I know you two are close--”

“--just keep an open mind,” Bucky warned, arms crossed over his chest now too. “I promised I wouldn't say anything but--” 

“It's you, you don't count,” they both said in tandem.

The pause was in sync too, looking at each other a moment and god, how long had it been since they’d talked about something important enough, deep enough to know each other this well, damn right in sync again?

And they were talking about two best friends, same-sex best friends, who liked each other. Discussing it _with his best friend_ , who was his same sex, that he also happened to be madly in love with.

“--did Angie mention the possibility?” Steve sounded cautious as hell and Bucky’s eyebrows lifted.

“Did Peggy? Of. Liking Angie?” 

“It's just a crush,” that deep voice corrected quickly and now Bucky’s jaw had dropped. A crush. By god, Peggy Carter had a crush on Angie Martinelli and Bucky couldn’t think of a better thing for them both.

“That's what Angie said! But I think they're both--” 

“Comfortable around each other,” Steve offered, oversimplifying, backtracking and Bucky caught on to it fast, instantly drew back too.

“Exactly, and if it's not serious anyways--” Bucky waved a hand and Steve chewed his lip, all tensed up and nowhere near the celebratory he should be.

“--should we tell…?”

“I don’t really see why not.” He lifted a shoulder and Steve nodded shallowly, gazing out at the spew of buildings in the distance.

“It’s probably just schoolgirl affection.” 

“Yeah of course, not a big deal or anything,” Bucky nodded, wishing his damn heart would stop pounding.

“It's not like it's normal,” Steve pointed out, hand lifting and waving in explanation, sweeping it all under the proverbial rug. 

“No, of course not,” Bucky agreed slowly and at least his heart wasn’t pounding anymore, it was just breaking in his chest. 

“But it's not hurting anyone, it's not like they...”

Lived together and depended on each other and would have their entire lives uprooted if something went wrong? 

“Right,” Bucky said weakly. Rolled his lips in, looked down at the metal grate beneath their feet, hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I'll go. Pull Angie aside.” 

“Right now?” Those blue eyes were filled with all this curious confusion and Bucky would probably take getting shot in the side over this fucking conversation right now.

“I mean. Like you said, it's not like it's anything.” If it came out way too fucking bitter Steve didn’t call him on it. Or hell, maybe he didn’t even notice. He hadn’t noticed Bucky being in love with him his entire life, why would he notice something as stupid and silly as his emotions. “Might as well mention it now.”

“Right. Won't uh. Change a thing. Just closer friends.” 

“Yeah, friends,” He said flatly and with that he was shoving past Steve, back into the apartment. 

He had no idea how that turned so south but fuck, he hated this. He hated how badly he wanted to turn around and press his lips against Steve's mouth when he should be wanting to punch his stupid mouth through putting them both through this fucking hell.

Steve’d kissed Jack and everything still wasn’t okay, _still_ , apparently they couldn’t even talk about two dames likin’ each other without everything being as fucking platonic and _not like that_ as possible. 

Angie had said it was a little crush and hell, maybe Steve was right, maybe it didn't mean a damn thing, maybe they just both thought the other was pretty and sweet, didn't a lot of girls? There were tons of girls he knew that had a best friend they giggled about adoring, it didn't mean. 

It didn't mean they were fucked up like he was. Like he was still trying to figure out if Steve was. Because Steve seemed pretty damn adamant about it meaning nothing. 

Hell, maybe that wasn’t because he was fighting something "more." Maybe to Steve it was nothing because that was all Bucky meant too. 

 

Running down the stairs and slamming through another door into the chilled New York air wasn’t making him feel any better. He needed out of that apartment, out of the betrayed way Bucky was looking at him, that accusatory glare as Steve tried not to make this about him but _fuck_ , it hurt, it really hurt. 

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe in there the only thing he could think about was Bucky and how terrified he was of Bucky finding out the way Steve maybe might possibly feel about him and what that would mean, how fucking fast he would leave. Would it take an hour to pack his things? Ten minutes? 

Maybe he wouldn’t even bother packing a thing, maybe he’d just get up and go, wouldn’t want a single piece left of his life with Steve to remind him that the boy he’d spent his life growing up beside was really sick, sick in a way the most powerful serum on Earth couldn’t fix. How fucked up, how bad did Steve have to be for this to slip through the cracks of perfected cell science? How fucking betrayed would Bucky feel, how disgusted?

It was one thing to kiss another boy out of some spiteful battle and it was a whole other ballgame to be in love with his best friend. His best friend who trusted him, took care of him, taught him to dance and made him laugh and if Bucky found out he was Steve’s everything, maybe in _that_ way too, how much of Bucky’s life, happiness, security would Steve ruin?

He was the only person Buck trusted, the only person he let take care of him after Azzano and if Steve broke that trust in the most monumental, fucked up way he could…

Fuck fuck fuck. 

Hands shoved in his pockets and blonde hair whipping in the wind, but his head wasn’t ducked low enough not to see the Stark car parked very conspicuously down the street. He sucked in a breath and made sure his eyes weren’t watering before rapping on the window. 

Mr. Jarvis jumped so high he hit his head on the ceiling, rubbing it painfully as he rolled down the window and squinted out of the car. 

“How’s she doing?” The accent was different than Peg’s and Steve shrugged, tucking his hands in the crooks of his elbows.

“She's um. She's great, just fine. Bucky stitched her up and now she's bitching over how we make tea.” 

“Oh good.” Jarvis finally quit rubbing his head, looking terribly relieved as he glanced around the empty street. “Except not the tea part, that's _quite_ a shame. I could run down to that shop she likes--”

“I'm sure that's not necessary Jarvis, but thank you.” He gave him a tight smile, but the waiting puppy dog face wasn’t going away. “If you uh. Want something to do to help though--”

“Yes, of course,” Jarvis all but jumped again, looking terribly worried as he insisted, “Anything.” 

“Could you keep a very close eye on Bucky? Maybe. Maybe have Howard meet and talk with him - not about. Um. Project Italy. He's made some friends lately that aren't...the most. I'm just worried about him, okay? Keep an eye out.”

“Of course Captain Rogers. I'd be honored. I’ll pass the message along to Mister Stark right away.” 

Jarvis gave him a little salute and yeah, okay, he was one of those. Steve reached through the open window to clap a heavy hand on his shoulder, tight smile a touch more sincere. “Thanks.”

 

~*~*~

 

“Where are you takin’ me? Y’know, a guy gets suspicious when he’s told his lunch is gonna be spent somewhere there’s not food.” 

“How do you know there’s not gonna be food?” Thompson glanced over under the brim of that pretty gray and Bucky waved a hand at the street they were walking on. 

“We’ve already passed all the good places to eat, which means you’ve got somewhere in mind that likely doesn’t involve eating. It’s a good thing I know how to pick Carter’s snack drawer.” Bucky gave him a bright smile and Jack laughed, slowing to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk and opening up a door, gesturing Bucky inside before he could see what was written on the glass. 

“She has a snack drawer?”

“Hell yeah she does. I swear she eats more often than Steve, and his metabolism is quadruple enhanced. I have no idea where she puts it all.” He tipped a corner of his mouth up, jostling Jack’s shoulder before he finally looked around, eyebrows shooting up as he realized where they were.

His shoulder got jostled back and Bucky turned the look of surprise to the shiny steel blues under that slicked blonde hair, gray hat held in hand now, matching the four dozen others on various racks around the little shop. 

“So you’ll stop stealing mine,” he clarified, waving with the tip of it to indicate the store. “Figured I’d help you pick out your own.”

“Wow.” Bucky gave him a surprised, appreciate shoulder shove, beaming wide as he started into the shop, Jack following on his heels. “Seriously, this is great. Thanks.”

A little shrug and Thompson scooped up the closest brown felt, reaching over to fit it snuggly on Bucky’s head. 

“Don’t know why you don’t have one already. It’s not like you’re short on cash with the two jobs you’ve been keeping.” They both made contemplative faces in the mirror, then Jack was lifting the brown hat off Bucky’s head, putting it back on the rack so he didn’t see the look on Bucky’s face when he asked. “Why are you still working at the diner?” 

A short shrug and Bucky scooped up the closest light gray one, flipping it in the air to tug it down sideways over an eye. 

“Don’t wanna let down the people that work there too. They depend on me as much as the SSR does.” He spun on a heel, cocking an eyebrow up at Thompson with that teasing, charming smile. 

“You’ve been hanging out with Rogers too much,” Thompson informed him, reaching over to straighten the hat properly on Bucky’s head. “All that goodness and righteous intent. He’s rubbing off on you.” 

“Shut up.” Bucky shoved Thompson’s shoulder, mouth curled around a laugh as he faux-glared, pulling the brim of his hat down even further to peer out from underneath, “Rogers doesn’t rub off _anything_ on me.” 

Jack had a smile on his face as he flicked the brim of Bucky’s hat back up, shaking his head fondly and opening his mouth to reply, but before he got the chance there was an unfamiliar voice piping up from behind them.

“What’s that about rubbing off Rogers?” 

Because apparently Bucky’s life could not get possibly any weirder, somehow, the guy that kept fucking popping up at the most inopportune times poked his damn nosy head around the corner. 

“Howard!” Bucky scolded, more shock at the scandalous remark than somehow running into Stark literally everywhere he went. A hand shot up in exasperation as he stepped around Jack’s broad shoulders to turn his faux-glare on the mischievous little tilt of that mustache. “You always find a way to twist things so damn dirty.”

“You’re the one twisting dirty, you’re talking about rubbing off Captain America!” Howard’s eyes were wide as he threw up two hands in pure feigned innocence and Bucky couldn’t help the choked laugh, bringing a finger up to hush that ridiculous expression at the same time. 

The look on Howard’s face just reminded him so much of that stick in the ass Howling Commandos joke thing he’d been horrified at and eventually ended up crying with laughter over.

Although a quick glance to the side said that the humor wasn’t quite the same on all fronts of the war, because Jack looked positively scandalized. Bucky quickly waved an arm between them, hopefully diffusing the awkwardness with it.

“Jack, this is Howard Stark. Howard, Agent Jack Thompson, SSR.”

“How do I know that name? That’s a familiar name.” Howard scratched his head, looking remarkably more like the scientist than the millionaire who shopped for fancy hats. 

“Well I certainly know yours,” Jack offered, sticking out a hand in offering. Howard took it, shaking a little vigorously before straightening up and fixing his tie, right back to preening. 

“What are you fellas doing here? It’s not often you run into two agents in the middle of your favorite millinery.” 

Of course Howard Stark had a favorite hat shop, and of course with his luck, he happened to be here the one damn time Bucky visited it.

“Well technically, I’m not an agent,” Bucky pointed out the same time Thompson clapped a hand on his shoulder. 

“We’re gettin’ Brooklyn here a hat of his own.”

Howard made a contemplative face and Bucky tipped the gray one he was wearing at Howard, running a finger along the brim. “What do you think?” 

“No. Absolutely not.” A shaking head that was yeah, a little crazy, but Stark did know a thing or two about fashion, the suit he was wearing probably cost more than Jack and Bucky’s yearly paychecks combined. 

“You should go with black. Gray’s much more calm and cool, like Jack here.” Howard tipped his head with wink in Jack’s direction and that shocked, scandalized look was right back on Thompson's face as his hand flew off Bucky’s shoulder, like he couldn’t possibly believe the famous Howard Stark was the kind who flirted with _everyone_ , regardless of occasion or gender. 

Bucky really didn’t know how to explain that one, considering the fact that he was kinda overwhelmed by it more often than not, so he handed the gray hat back to Jack and took the black one Howard was extending instead. 

“You sure?” He turned to glance in the mirror and yeah, it looked good, he looked fine as hell but weren’t there all these stigmatisms that came with those jet-black hats? A glance back to Jack and Howard, adjusting the way it sat over his pomade. “I don’t look like too much of an asshole?”

“Well, if you’re ever planning to take rubbing off Rogers to the next step, there’s gotta be an asshole in there somewhere.” 

The bursted laughter that time was pure fucking shock because the things out of Howard’s _mouth_ sometimes, Jesus fuck. 

Wide blue eyes turned on him and the hand clutched over his stomach and he could read that expression on Jack’s face easy as if it were Steve’s. 

Who the fuck _was_ this guy. 

Yeah, yeah, Bucky definitely understood that particular sentiment. 

“Oh god, sorry, he’s almost always like this. He thinks he’s so funny, spent a couple months on the frontline and had enough conversations with the Howling Commandos to think he can pull the same shit soldier talk they do.” Bucky waved a hand at Howard’s entire getup as the millionaire rolled his eyes at the explanation and Jack just blinked. 

“I have never...heard soldiers talk like that.”

“Yeah, well. Howard’s a special kind. Gets along with all types, if you know what I mean.” He tipped his head, tugging off the black hat and inspecting the rim inside, very pointedly not looking at either of them as the insinuation floated in the air. 

Stark must not have been that bothered by it though, if the amused sound out of his mouth was any indication. Shuffling feet as Stark leaned on the closest display, voice going all casual, overly nonchalant.

“You’re not on the straight and narrow so much yourself, Barnes.” 

He would’ve frozen solid if they were anywhere else but they were in fucking public and his head snapped up so fast he could’ve given himself whiplash. 

“ _Shh_.” It came out rather violently but Bucky meant it, meant the harsh look he threw with it. “Stark, seriously, we are in public. Throw around your accusations in the lab all day but--”

“I own this place, you’re fine,” Stark scoffed, tossing a hand his way and well, at least that explained why Stark had a favorite millinery. 

That didn't stop him from huffing, crossing both arms over his chest as he tampered down the glare just a little. 

“Don’t get used to it, you don’t own everywhere, Stark.”

“One of these days I will. Then even guys like Jack won’t be giving anybody that look anymore.” Stark pinned a raised eyebrow and sideways mustache at the fumbling, wide-eyed agent at his side and there really wasn't much point in trying to excuse Howard’s antics when he'd just accused Bucky of _that_ , on top of everything. In public. In front of the man that'd been attack-kissed by the man Bucky was in love with. 

“Don’t think you know so much about guys like Jack,” Bucky chided lightly because if he was going down in this shitstorm he was damn right dragging Thompson with him. 

And would you look at that, Jack was glaring at _him_ now, steel blue eyes cold and defined pretty jaw clicking. 

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder and tossed the hat up in a spin, flipping it onto his head with a crooked grin. 

“Alright, I think I like the black. We’ll go with this one.” A bright smile up from under the rim and Bucky Barnes didn't give a damn if they were glaring at him or red in the face or whatever the hell that twist of emotions behind Thompson's eyes were, but the more he glanced between Howard and Jack under the brim of the sexy black hat, the more he was sure. 

Guys like Jack. 

Thank the lord for Howard Stark. 

 

 

Angie Martinelli wasn't in the Griffith anymore, wasn't in the diner. Wasn't in Rogers & Barnes’ apartment, wasn't to be found in the entire state of New York. 

No, Angie Martinelli was on the moon. 

There was a chance Peggy Carter liked her, like that, had a _crush_ on her, saw her as more than just a sweet friend and Angie Martinelli was officially taking up residence as a martian until further notice. 

Although, she supposed martians were people on Mars, so if she was living on the moon she'd be a...moontian? 

Hm. Maybe she'd just stick with over the moon. 

Well, not quite _over_ it yet because yes, Peggy had told Steve who told Bucky who told her that there was a chance she felt that way about Angie which was only about the best thing she'd heard in her life, but. 

Peggy had just been shot, it wasn't like she needed an ounce more stress in her life. Just lots more ounces of soup, and then they could talk about it after she got all healed up. In the meantime. 

“Here you go, English. There's those nuts in it you like and all.” 

She deposited the bowl of oatmeal on Peggy’s dresser, sitting a spoon on top as Peggy finished looping on an earring. 

“You know I'm doing just fine, Angie.” Big brown eyes turned up with a quirk of those perfect red lips and Angie shook her head once, letting the curls bounce for emphasis. 

“You'll be doing just fine when there's not a hole in you anymore. Are you sure you have to go in for work today?” 

“Yes, I’m sure. James is quite the nurse, you know.” 

“Have you changed your bandages yet today?”

“Yes, Angie, I have.” Peggy gave her a fond little amused smile and Angie pursed her lips, perching one dramatic hand on her hip.

“Alright, well Miss, I am expecting you at the diner for lunch, where I will be fully prepared to check and change them again.” 

Peggy rolled her eyes, but there was a grin on her face as she begrudgingly agreed. 

If that wasn’t just the cutest smile in the whole wide world. Oh, goodness, she wanted to kiss her. Angie just couldn’t take advantage of their precious mugging victim. But God, she wanted to kiss her. 

“Thank you, Angie, for breakfast. You wouldn’t be too miffed if I took it to the office and ate there?”

“So long as you get some nutrition in you it don’t matter where.” She offered an arm and Peggy took it gratefully, pulling herself to her feet with a wince. “You want me to walk you to the office?”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not necessary--”

“Wonderful, I already brought my bag.” Another fond headshake but Peggy wasn’t stopping her either so Angie happily kept their arms looped, grabbing Peggy’s oatmeal too and guiding them for the door. 

Bucky’d said, that Peggy liked her. Had a crush. This beautiful woman might have feelings for _her_.

She was just so _elated_ and _excited_ , she couldn’t help it. One hand on the door and of course she’d still be ladylike but Peggy _liked_ her and she was smiling through the wincing pain and Angie couldn’t help but lean over and kiss that pretty cheek again. 

The puckered sound was all short and cute, leaving a little lipstick mark Angie pulled a kerchief to wipe off as Peggy huffed a sigh but she was smiling shyly to herself and Angie was bouncing on her toes she was just so so so _excited_. 

As soon as that bullet hole healed. And maybe...maybe tonight, tonight they could talk about it. Tonight, Angie would pour Peggy a cup of tea and confess her love. 

And she’d thought Peggy could never. 

She'd never been so elated to be wrong in her life. 

 

“Y’know,” Bucky pondered, tacking up a page of Daniel’s notes to the mission board as Thompson handed him another. “I read that situation between you and Steve entirely wrong.”

Jack cut a curious gaze to the nonchalant profile, mouth twisting down. “What do you mean you read it wrong?” 

“I mean I read it wrong,” Bucky repeated, giving him a quick smile over his shoulder. “But I think I’m figuring it out.” 

Well that didn’t sound ominous at all. He opened his mouth to ask Barnes what the fuck he thought he was figuring out, and of course, speak of the blonde beautiful devil, Steve Rogers chose that exact moment to walk up and his mouth snapped right back shut.

“What’s that?” Rogers was sipping coffee Sousa had made him, pausing as he walked past the board and pointing at one of the new sheets Bucky’d just pinned up. “Is that a [Fairbairn Sykes](http://www.ww2gear.com/p-39921-british-fairbairn-sykes-commando-knife-wwii-repro-wsheath.aspx) knife?” 

Rogers slid in close and Barnes took a step back for him to study it. It was just a sketch on one of the Cyrillic pages, some weapons note or another. Personally, Thompson was pretty sure it might just be an example of other things they made with the same metal as the armor, but here was Rogers, brows furrowed and coffee steaming as he narrowed his eyes at the tiny sketch like it was the most important damn thing on the board.

They had pages full of coordinates and warehouse possibilities for these mysterious identical shipment crates carrying god knows what other metallic weapons and they still had no idea why the Russians were tracking the Howling Commandos team or how the fuck they managed to or what the hell any of it was for and Rogers wanted to know if one of the Russian notes had a little sketch of a certain kind of knife? 

“It might be,” Jack bit, tacking up the next page since Barnes had stepped back to make room for the Great Captain America. “So?”

“So Buck flipped the hell out the first time Falsworth uncased his,” Steve bit back, turning that fire blue on Jack like he was the damn Fairbairn Sykes instead. “We tossed it over the edge of a cliff and got Monty a new knife, it was so bad.”

That sounded rather dramatic and he had zero inclinations to trust Rogers on anything, so Thompson lifted his eyebrows and turned to Barnes to confirm. 

Bucky made a grim face with a little shrug, leaning back in close to peer over Rogers' shoulder. 

“I don’t know, Steve, it doesn’t look much like one to me.” 

Rogers made his Determined face, ducking to the side and setting his coffee down on the closest desk, snagging a pencil out of a cup. They both backed up as Rogers stepped up to the drawing, little pencil propped comfortable between big fingers as he sketched in a few more lines. 

He was an artist dammit, and he knew Bucky better than everybody, Thompson could keep that dumb skeptical look off his face. 

The knife really didn’t need much to turn the crude drawing into a shaded, obvious version that Steve was _entirely_ sure was _that_ knife. 

One more careful shadow and Steve was spinning back around, raising his eyebrows triumphantly as he indicated the drawing over his shoulder at the two skeptical expressions. 

Except Bucky wasn’t looking skeptical anymore. Bucky was the color of the paper Steve’d just been drawing on. 

“Yeah, yeah I think that’s. Definitely a F-fair--” Suddenly Bucky’s hands were covering his eyes and _fuck_. 

He snatched the paper down and shoved it at Jack’s stunned chest, taking Bucky by the elbow because he was trembling like a leaf, paler than Steve on a winter’s day in the '30’s. 

“No, no,” Buck was moaning quietly and fuck, _fuck_ , he was so not prepared for this, he’d been so damn quick to prove himself he hadn’t thought--

“Peggy!” Steve whipped over his shoulder, calling the name panicked only he couldn’t see her, she wasn’t in here, where the fuck was she?

Someone - Agent Y something? - quickly stood up from his desk, pointing for the hallway. 

“Agent Sousa pulled Agent Carter aside to talk about something, I think.”

“Go find her!” Steve barked, order echoing around the bullpen and suddenly, for the first time since being shut down during that initial week, there was the Captain Rogers none of them had seen yet, voice more loud and commanding than any of them could’ve pictured from the quiet agent who doodled at his desk. “Thompson, get me a recorder.” 

Thompson instantly took off, didn’t so much as question Steve which was honestly, kinda remarkable. But Thompson’s instant soldier’s obedience was the last thing on his mind when the _no_ ’s were turning to high pitched whimpers. 

Bucky was starting to crumple and Steve hauled him upright, snapped right into the Captain’s mode he hadn’t been in for months and bustled Bucky into the glass soundproof briefing room, one arm around the curling shoulders and the other holding up his torso, gaze steady on the hidden face. 

Everyone was staring but Steve didn’t give a damn, didn’t even notice, just kicked the door shut behind him and dragged out a chair with his ankle, propping Bucky down on it and the second Steve let go Bucky put his head between his knees, shaking hands covering the back of his neck as he rocked. 

Steve dropped to a crouch in front of his shaking boy - one hand heavy, steady on Bucky’s knee. 

“Talk to me, Buck.” The command was filled with enough concern to be more of a plea than an order but he didn’t wanna order Bucky around, not when he was like this, not when he’d been tortured for months at the hands of those bastards. 

Buck was mumbling quietly, still rocking, shaking, faster and faster, squeezing harder and harder and Steve sucked in a breath, fuck, it looked like he didn’t have a fucking choice.

“Sergeant Barnes!” The bark was loud and violent enough to bounce off the walls and Bucky snapped upright so fast his head rolled, beautiful crystal eyes glossed over. 

“32557038,” he mumbled and Steve squeezed his knee tighter, voice low and serious. 

“Tell me about Russia.”

“When you’re ready,” Buck quoted, hollow. Terrifying, the most terrible, menacing threat he’d ever heard past the parted lips. “Russia...plans for you, Ser-geant Barnes.” 

A shiver went down Steve’s spine but he held his breath, couldn’t breathe right now if he tried, eyebrows knit and lifted as he kept perched low in front of Buck, looking up at him with all the pain betrayed in the expression Bucky wasn’t seeing. 

The pretty head cocked and Bucky blinked slow, fingers curling up as his hands tucked against his chest, shaking shaking. Low, haunted, words rolling off his tongue like they weren’t his at all. 

“You are to be...the new fist of. Hyydra.” 

Steve’s heart was about to leap out of his chest but he forced himself to swallow, dig his fingers into Bucky’s knee a little harder, try and ground him. 

“What’s the metal contraption for?” He demanded low, because he needed to talk about something that wasn’t Bucky for a second, he needed Buck to be okay but Bucky just curled up tighter, shying away from Steve’s grip and he wouldn’t stop fucking trembling. 

“Please, please, don’t. Please--”

The door swung open and Jack ran inside right as Bucky’s teeth began chattering, head dipping down against his chest as he rocked forward and tried to curl up again. 

Thompson was holding out a tape recorder, hands unsteady in his peripherals and Steve grabbed it without taking his eyes off Bucky, flipping on the switch and setting it on the table, ducking his head to meet Bucky’s unfocused gaze, tip his chin back up with a careful finger, trying to get any kind of reading outta the fogged-over ice.

“I need you to tell me about the project in Russia. Why is Hydra sending you there?” It was by some fucking miracle he kept his voice steady, kept his hand from shaking as he pulled it away from Bucky’s face. Held his breath as the dark eyelashes fluttered, mouth twisting down and making the dimple in his chin indent, terror stuttering in flashes across the gorgeous shadows. 

“T-Train. They train, the spiders. It’s a red room and they train the spiders. You’ll be better than the ballerinas…” His voice went strained and high and Jack was nearly as pale as Bucky was, standing there frozen as glassy eyes slipped closed, pomade dislodging as he shook his head once, hard, “The secret weapon’s almost ready to be shipped.” 

“What secret weapon? Bucky, what secret weapon?” 

Buck just started shaking violently, rocking and rocking, fists uncurling to grab his left wrist again and start to twist, panicked, the way he had during that nightmare where he’d been screaming _get it off me_ and Steve’s heart stopped in his chest, everything shutting right down. 

That was enough of that. 

“Go get me a glass of water,” he commanded over his shoulder and Jack was still frozen, stumbling over a quiet,

“Why?” Quiet, small.

Steve spun on him, all anger and grit teeth as he snapped, “ _GO_!”

Thompson took off, glass door swinging back shut and Steve took Bucky’s face in his hands, cupping the sharp jaw to call his name, call Bucky back from the hell he’d slipped into. 

“It’s me, it’s Steve, Buck. Buck, you’re safe, I’ve got you, _Buck_.” 

He wasn’t listening. Steve was trying to break him out of it but he wasn’t listening, those foggy eyes weren’t clearing up and Steve wanted to scream, wanted to take that Zola bastard by the shoulders and throw him off the nearest fucking cliff. 

Bucky was putty in his hands, moved easy as ragdoll and Steve’s hands slid down to his neck, getting desperate this time as he called his name, almost as much hurt in his voice as there was in Bucky’s. 

“It’s me, Bucky. It’s _your Steve_.” Fingers curling against his spine, slipping up into the dark waves of rough hair at the base of his neck and Bucky sucked in a shaky breath, blinking hard as a hand came up, grabbed Steve’s wrist instead, tight and panicked.

“St. Steve?” He called, unsure and still so scared and Steve hadn’t been this damn relieved since the first time he’d pulled Bucky off that table.

“Yeah, Buck,” he breathed. “Yeah, it’s me.” 

He clapped a hand on Bucky’s neck, the same affectionate, overwhelmed touch from that night in Azzano and there went the rest of the fog, clearing up like sun on misty dew. 

“Oh god,” Bucky managed, then he was burying his face right back in his hands and Steve leaned back on his heels, a rush of air escaping as he balanced with the hand on Bucky’s knee, only he really wanted it to be his forehead instead, wanted to press himself hard against Bucky’s bones until they both were so solid nothing like that ever ever happened again. 

Steve’s eyes were closed when the door swung back open and Jack finally came in with that glass of water. 

“Is he…” Jack started nervously and Bucky lifted his head to the stunned expression. 

“Am I what?” He asked and Thompson blinked owlishly, standing there numb with a waterglass in his hand.

“Oh. You’re...okay.”

“Sure,” Bucky agreed shakily and Steve very, very regrettably removed his hand from Bucky’s knee to take the glass from Thompson, offering it over to Bucky before reaching over and flipping off the recorder, red light blinking out like the light in Bucky’s beautiful eyes.

Bucky stared at it. 

“What did I...did I say,” he whispered and Bucky sounded so damn haunted Steve was honestly seconds away from screaming. Instead he kept his voice steady, serious, low, unarguable.

“Not a lot of it made sense.” He held out the recorder for Jack to take. Still hadn’t taken his eyes off Bucky once. Still in commanding war mode as he held Bucky’s gaze and gave him one more order. “But I’m not going to play it for you, because you’re not going through that again, you understand?” 

Bucky nodded shallowly, eyes cutting away and down. He was still trembling a little, and fuck, Steve wished to god he could’ve done more. 

A heavy hand reached up to clap Bucky’s shoulder, congenial, soldier to soldier when he wanted to pull Buck into his arms and rock him right to sleep but. They were in public, in front of all of the gaping agents outside and it wasn’t dark, Bucky wasn’t crying. Hell, Steve probably didn’t have permission to touch him as much as he already had.

The door slammed open again and Steve’s hand shot back off Bucky’s shoulder, all three of their heads turning to the winded brunette standing in the doorway, one hand clutched over the side of her blouse and looking rather distressed. 

“What did I miss?”

Bucky snorted and Steve pushed to his feet, raising an eyebrow at Peggy and shooting her an unimpressed _nice_ with sharp eyes.

Those blues softened right down the moment he turned them back on the stiff soldier propped numbly in his chair.

“You good?” He asked and Bucky just stared up at him. Was he good. The room was fuzzy at the corners and his heart was pounding so fast he couldn’t breathe and the walls were closing in and Steve wanted to know if he was good. 

“I’m good,” he managed. 

Steve nodded once, sucking in a breath and patting Bucky’s shoulder one more time.

“I’m gonna go sit down with the Chief if you need me, okay?” 

Bucky nodded. Steve lifted his hand away and held it out for the recorder Jack was still clutching. He handed it over without protest then Steve was swinging out of the briefing room, leaving a black hole of silence behind him. 

“I’m gonna go wash my face,” Bucky mumbled, pushing to his feet with a heavy hand on the table and Jack and Peggy both watched him go, silently treading out of the room, down the perfectly quiet bullpen, off for the bathrooms. 

The minute the door swung back shut Jack was grabbing her arm, pulling her away from the door with a hiss.

“Where the hell were you, Carter? What was so damn important that Sousa had to talk to you about?” 

She looked rather overwhelmed, brown blinking wide and red mouth floundering. 

“I um. He just wanted to know about. Um. It's really nothing.” 

“You want me to ever trust you again, then I'd start explaining.” It wasn’t a low blow, considering all the _shit_ she’d pulled over on him and Carter apparently figured the same, tipping her head as she pursed her lips and finally huffed an aggrieved sigh. 

“Fine, I got...shot.” 

“You _what??_ ” 

She pulled her hand away from her side and the white loose blouse was stained red where her fingers had been pressing. 

“It was a few days ago, it's really not a big deal, I'm just a little. Weaker than I'm used to,” she tried to cover, pretty lamely and unconvincing if you asked him. 

So Jack reached over and touched an edge of the red carefully, pulling his fingers back as she jumped and hissed.

“Jesus, Carter. You gonna bleed all over the floor! I'm stitching that back up.” She was easy enough to shove out the door, but the minute she realized he was serious, blue heels started to backtrack.

“Jack," she protested, trying to pull her arm free because yes, she could admit she was reckless at times, but she also knew enough not to trust the asshole of the century Agent Jack Thompson with her bare skin and wounds, no thank you. 

“I didn't ask,” he replied, grabbing a first aid kit off the wall and carting her for the hallway by the elbow. 

“I think you're just looking for a reason to poke me with a needle,” she started and Jack swung the around the corner, making her stumble a little catch up. 

“Maybe I am,” he shot back but the next thing he knew he was sweeping aside a pile of papers on a desk in one of the interrogation watching rooms and asking her rather politely, albeit a bit awkward with waving hands, to roll up the bottom of her shirt. 

It looked like she didn’t have a lot of options and to be fair, she was bleeding quite a bit and it would probably be a good idea to get stitched back up. Considering her regular nurse could probably use some stitches and tender loving care himself right now, might as fucking well let Jack Thompson do it, he was dead set on it anyways. 

She hissed as he carefully swiped an antiseptic pad over the wound, her old bloody bandage already discarded as he inspected the torn up skin. 

“Wow, I haven't seen hospital stitches ever done that way. I'm surprised you snapped these, they look really well done.” Peggy huffed. She’d be sure to pass along to compliment next time another man was rolling up her shirt to poke a needle through her skin. 

“Yeah, that’s some strong stitching work. Can’t really see how you could’ve broken these, you must have been trying pretty hard.” He shot her a glare as he threaded up a curved needle and Peggy gave him back her prettiest grimace. 

“Well, you know me.” Red lips parted at the prick and she gripped the edge of the desk, nails clacking and pulse pounding. “Always trying-- _ah!_ Hard.” 

Thompson made a noncommittal noise and went quiet, for once, eyebrows furrowing as he focused on stitching her up and Peggy looked up at the dim ceiling, wondering how the fuck this had become her life but dear me, here she was. 

 

The cold water splashing on his face wasn’t helping at all. It’d been freezing in that torture chamber too. 

What a fucking thing to have for a job, to be called in as the local expert on _torture_ , fuck this fucking case, fuck that fucking man. 

But god, the only thing breaking him more than Zola right now was Rogers. 

Rogers, who’d pulled Bucky into safety, who’d kept his cool enough to extract information in that hell of a situation and Bucky could respect that, he really fucking could, god knows he was nothing but a crumbling mess when Steve was hurt. 

Hurt. The bathroom lights were too bright and there were more bruises on his wrist and the cold water was chilling his bones and he might never stop shaking but. 

But the worst part, the worst part of it all was that the only thing Bucky wanted in the _world_ right now was for Steve to hold him, he just wanted his best friend’s arms wrapped around him but Steve wasn’t _here_. 

Steve hadn’t even looked at him as he’d strolled out of the damn briefing room. He’d been vibrating, vibrating so obviously Bucky could tell from the chair how emotional, upset but he wasn’t _looking_ at Bucky, let alone holding him close to that soft gold heart until Bucky stopped being so motherfucking cold. 

He slammed the water off, both hands on porcelain as he dipped his head, shoulders high, breathing hard with his eyes shut but Steve still wasn’t fucking here. 

Why? Why would he leave Bucky like that?

 

Chief Duley was talking, hands waving in the air as Steve filled out the paperwork in the chair across from him but he didn’t hear a word the chief said. 

The only words he could hear were in his head, the voice - actually Bucky’s, ironically, that was the only shape his conscious had ever taken - scolding over and over the one thing he’d spent the past month and a half begging wasn’t true. 

Bucky’d been hurt, Steve had seen him like that, needed to touch him, needed to hold him, and he’d realized, somewhere in the middle of the panic and the commanding and Bucky’s foggy crystal eyes and the pain in his chest that felt like it was going to break him into a thousand pieces and the rage consuming his soul for all the monsters that had ever touched Bucky and the monster he wanted to be to them, the nightmare of his own shaking bloody hands so fucking ready to squeeze the life out of every single one of those vile creatures that made Bucky that fucking terrified and broken--

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Steve realized there was a pretty fucking high possibility he was in love with Bucky Barnes. 

Well duh, obviously if he was queer, of course he was in love with Buck. He’d always been a little in love with him when he thought he was straight and if Steve wasn’t straight? 

The man he might be in love with was falling apart, and Steve was sitting in here doing paperwork, and he had no idea how he was supposed to open his mouth ever again without ruining the one life he needed more than his own. 

 

The door to the bathroom swung open. Bucky lifted his head, fingers uncurling from the sink only that meant his hands were shaking again, then a steady palm landed on his shoulder and Bucky slammed the water on again. One more splash up against his face and he sucked in a cold breath, curling and uncurling his fingers, trying to make them still as he pressed the off the stream. 

He wouldn’t’ve noticed if he hadn’t ducked his head against the lights, but apparently his tie was soaked. Great. 

“Dammit,” Bucky cursed quietly, lifting it away from his chest and the hand on his shoulder tugged him away from the sink, looked down at the disastrous state of his tie, Bucky’s really really trying one sided smile that felt about as fake and forced as the tie did. 

Sousa gave him a sympathetic one in return, leaning his crutch against the sink and hopping to get his balance as he loosened up the tie, slid it free from Bucky’s collar for him. 

“No one will mind.” The look he gave Bucky told him everything he needed to know. Great, so not only was he the outsider here, he was now also the freak. It’d be great if he could, y’know, even remember half the shit he said. But here he was, with this big empty blank spot in his memory and Daniel Sousa comforting him in the bathroom with that sympathetic face. 

“Hey, did you ever make that doctor’s appointment?” And asking if he’d seen a doctor. _Fuck_ , this was measuring up to just be the best fucking week. 

“Uh. No. I didn't.” 

Sousa clapped a hand on his shoulder and Bucky tried not to think about Steve and failed absolutely miserably. “How about you just come with me next time I go? My doctor’s pretty trustworthy.”

There was a teasing lilt in it and Bucky chewed his lip, thought it over. It sounded like fucking hell right now, but right now wasn’t exactly normal and there was that expectant look under those dark eyebrows. 

“Yeah that'd be. Okay,” he agreed and Sousa gave him another smile, indicating a thumb for the door as Bucky undid the top button on his shirt. The tie had been choking him anyways, but it wasn’t like he was gonna take it off of his own volition, so thank god for Daniel Sousa. 

“You ready to head back?”

Ready as he’d ever fucking be. Bucky followed Daniel’s slow pace all the way back to the bullpen, numbing himself up a little more with every step. It was late enough now that some agents had already checked out, gone home. 

He didn’t know if Chief Duley needed anything from him - tough shit if he did, Bucky had no idea what happened - but it looked like Steve was still in his office, so at least he didn’t have to worry about that. 

Really though, he’d take Steve taking care of him physically and having to deal with the paperwork himself than the other way around but hey, they didn’t all get what they wanted. 

He wanted to ask Sousa if he’d split a cab with him, maybe come over to the apartment so Bucky didn’t have to be alone but he was already headed off in another direction, packing up his bag as he talked to someone and Bucky didn’t want to be a goddamn burden. 

Instead he took a deep breath and paused at the desk of one of the other agents - York or something - and asked if he’d seen Agent Thompson. 

“I think he's in one of the interrogation rooms,” Yauk told him and Bucky nodded to himself, kept walking down the aisle. 

Steve glanced up as Bucky passed the only window of Duley’s office that wasn’t fogged over, shooting him a little smile before he turned back to the paperwork covering his lap and Bucky looked away. 

Pressed unsteady fingertips into the wood of Steve’s desk before he kept walking past that one too, all the way to his in the back corner. There was nothing left to do but wait, apparently. 

So he waited, and did his goddamn best not to think, and wondered how the hell he was going to get an ounce of sleep tonight. 

Then, finally, Thompson swung back in, carrying a first aid kit, hanging it up on the wall before brushing off his hands and heading straight for Bucky’s desk. 

Peggy slipped in behind him, breathing in relief at being invisible for once, scoping her coat up off the wall hook and fitting it over her shoulders carefully, buttoning it up before anyone could comment at the blood on her shirt. 

She really could use some tea right now. Well, it was twenty past five, they should all be out of here anyways. 

Punch her card and out the door, before these heels gave out on her head that was reeling a bit more than she’d like. 

 

To be fair, so was Bucky’s. 

But some of it lifted as Jack came over, a touch of concern in the usually amused, asshole expression.

“Hey, Jack, uhm. Are you doing anything tonight?” Bucky kept his voice about as steady as he could, he knew Jack had been there and seen a lot of whatever the fuck just happened, and he sure as hell didn’t want to lose more in his life because of motherfucking Arnim Zola. 

“I don’t have any plans.” A lifted shoulder and the little smile Jack gave him was about the most comforting thing he’d seen all day. Bucky let out a rushed air of relief, throwing a hand in indication for the door. 

“Do you. You wanna go for a drink? I mean, I don't wanna pressure you into nothin’--”

“Hey, I'm never turning down a drink,” Jack teased lightly, scooping Bucky’s new hat up off his desk, fitting it over Bucky’s hesitant smile. “Let me go turn in my report and I’ll meet you in the lobby?” 

Bucky nodded, trying not to show how goddamn relieved he was that he didn’t have to be alone right now. 

“Yeah, that’d. Be great, thanks. I’ll see you there.”

 

To say the case was fucking him up was a bit of an understatement, but now that they were sitting on barstools in this greasy, loud bar with their hats stacked, two shots of whiskey in front of them and somebody he actually kinda trusted at his side, Bucky was all kinds of looking forward to getting fucked up instead. 

“You sure you wanna be drinking?” The note of concern would be surprising if they weren't already two beers into this when Bucky’d called for a round of hard liquor. 

“Oh yeah. It’s about the only thing I wanna be doing. Well, actually, anything that would make me forget the shit day I’ve had.” He gave Jack a wide smile and that blonde head shook, an eyebrow up as he lifted his tumbler. 

“To forgetting our troubles.”

“To forgetting our troubles,” Bucky toasted, a cheery clink before they were both tipping back the golden burn, a shiver running down with it, clank of the glass back down. 

“You know, as shitty as this case is, I gotta say. When I’m not being dragged back through the hell of being a P.O.W, working at the SSR ain’t half bad.” 

“You’re just glad you get to see my pretty face every day,” Jack leaned over to tease, cocky, tongue in his cheek and Bucky laughed, he laughed when he’d felt like doing nothing but crying for the past hour and suddenly he was really, really glad he’d made friends with Jack Thompson. 

“Maybe I am,” he shot back and Jack raised an eyebrow with his finger, flagging down the bartender to order them another round. 

Bucky ordered the next, and then they were ordering another, and another. 

He’d built up quite a tolerance during the war and from the looks of it Jack had too, although they weren’t drinking _that_ much. Well. 

He really would love to be wasted right now, maybe if he was drunk he wouldn’t notice how goddamn much he was floating, how fucking un-anchored he felt, melting without the comfort of Steve’s certainty. Didn’t even touch him, hug him after that. What kind of fucked up shit was that?

Of all times in his life he needed the comfort of Steve’s hands, and it was the one time Steve refused to do more than clap his goddamn shoulder.

It just wasn’t _fair._ Hell, Jack _Thompson_ had more of Steve physically than he had. 

Bucky’d grown up in love with him and this asshole, this asshole right here beside him that they hadn’t even known for half a year yet, knew Steve physically better than he did. He knew what Steve _tasted_ like. 

Fuck. That mouth, that smartass mouth had been on Bucky’s favorite smartass’s mouth. Alcohol shiny on Jack’s lips, flat and pink and fuck, what a fucking trip, that mouth right there had pressed against the only one Bucky’d ever wanted to touch in his entire life. 

Dabbing blood off split lips did _not_ count. He wanted to kiss Steve, he wanted to kiss Steve so bad he could feel it curling in his toes. He wanted to kiss Steve breathless, to nip and smile against his mouth, to slide his tongue against Steve’s and feel him shiver, to be crushed by those big hands, mouths crashing together and. Jack’d had a piece of that, had been kissed by Steve Rogers and fuck, _fuck_ Bucky was so goddamn jealous, what he’d goddamn give to be kissed by Steve Rogers. 

To _kiss_ Steve Rogers. Press his lips hard against the pretty pink ones. Had those lips? Pushed into Steve’s, had they caved under the shine? Bucky blinked into his glass and it suddenly dawned on him that he didn’t know the answer to that. 

A sharp inhale and he took another swig, wincing a tad at the burn as Jack’s mouth tipped up in an amused, loose smile. Wow. That mouth. On Steve’s. Bucky had no idea if...

Well, he wouldn’t know if he didn’t ask, so Bucky opened his mouth and fucking asked it. 

"Did you kiss him back?" 

“What?” Blue shot to him so quick he had to be reeling a bit, or maybe he was gripping the counter tight for other reasons. Bucky lifted a hand and waved it around in the air. 

“Steve wouldn’t say straight out and I never thought to ask you. Did you kiss him back?” He blinked very seriously at the pretty blue eyes and Jack looked rather taken aback, lips pursed, eyebrows knit with that contemplative, harsh edge. 

Whatever he was expecting for an answer, it definitely wasn’t what Jack said next. 

“Would you?”

That actually wasn’t an answer at all but it was interesting, and funny enough Bucky was just tipsy enough to absolutely reply. 

“Yeah,” he nodded sincerely, swirling the last inch around as he knit his brows, thought it over. “I'd've punched him first though.” 

“What? Why?” 

“That's just the way our relationship is. Maybe for waiting so long, maybe for havin’ the guts before I did. Hell if I know.” He lifted the glass back up and Jack shook his head, looking surprisingly amused, which was definitely a good sign so Bucky shoved the stray strands of his fallen swirl aside and kept right on rambling. 

“But clearly, he was never too keen on kissin’ me. I mean, there's been a hundred times he couldda done it. Times he almost died, times I almost died. I mean I remember - back when we were just kids - he had a crush on this girl Mary Sue, right? Wanted to kiss her but was all nervous as hell about it so good friend I am, offer to teach him. Just innocent little kid stuff and he still turned me down like I'd suggested we both join the circus. So no. I don't see him ever kissing me.” 

He waved the bartender over, got their glasses filled back up then the guy was gone again, had enough sense to leave them alone or maybe it was sheer luck but it was loud and busy enough in here no one was payin’ them any mind and maybe it was that that was making Bucky’s mouth run or maybe it was the fact that Jack Thompson kept looking at him with that unadulterated surprise that was way the fuck closer to awe than disgust. 

“And you want him to?” Thompson sounded kinda incredulous and Bucky tipped his glass back again, slamming it down declaratively.

“Yes.” 

Jack wasn’t that surprised, he’d kinda figured. After he’d seen the way Bucky rolled easily with Howard’s flirting, already knew how far he’d go for Rogers, all the teasing that could maybe be called flirting between the two of them, everything from the hat to the jokes on looks, well. He’d kinda figured. 

Brook was in a shitty place right now and Jack’d had the supremely shitty pleasure of doing exactly that, being kissed by Steve Rogers, and if he was gonna be a good friend he might as well. Just. Give some advice, Brook was a good guy, even if he had to be fucking wasted based on all the doubles he’d been knocking back like they were singles instead. It wouldn’t kill him to be a good friend, seeing Bucky shaking like that had brought on some unpleasant memories himself. So they had to keep it light. Teasing. Be a good friend.

Which was the only reason why he leaned over, cocked on an eyebrow before tipping his glass against his mouth again.

“Well. You said he likes a challenge, right?” 

“Likes? They're gonna be the death of him. And me,” Bucky pointed out, glaring down at the whiskey like it was completely Jack Daniel’s fault for all of it. “I don't think there's a single damn challenge in the whole wide world he hasn't acted on.” 

“Then maybe you need to rile him up,” Jack offered, tipping his glass and waving it around a little. “Get him jealous -- wow, that sounds weird to say.” 

“Yeah, right? I was just about to say the same thing. Like. Are we seriously debating relationship advice over that asshole?” Barnes laughed, kinda high and too bright, shining like those crystal eyes were now. 

Jack rolled his lips in, head cocking in agreement as the laugh settled back out and he waved his whiskey at Bucky very sincerely, just a little sloshing over the side. “But seriously, Brook.” 

“Nah,” Bucky sighed, mouth cutting down on one side in this sad little concession. “Tried a hundred times, he doesn't bat an eye at a single girl I bring home.” 

A single swish of the golden left in his glass and Jack stared down at it, counting all the rays of trapped melting sunshine riveting off the angles of the bottom of the crystal.

“Then maybe you need to bring home someone who's not a girl.” 

Bucky could physically hear, feel, the chord strike. One second they were laughing and the next Jack was staring down at his whiskey, big strong fingers curled around the little glass hard enough it might shatter and Bucky just stared at him. 

There was so much fucking smoke in here, when the fuck did the air get that thick? Had the bartender chosen exactly right now to turn off the damn air conditioning? Chords, all these thick chords tethered now and. 

What that would be like. Just picturing it alone, stumbling lip-locked into his and Steve's apartment, the fucking mess that would make. 

What Steve would do, stepping out of his room to hear what the ruckus was about as Jack slammed him into the wall at the foyer, loosening his tie - if he saw Steve’s face over Jack’s shoulder, how shocked he’d be, how upset. Steve would dart back into his room, press his back against the wall breathing hard -- 

Would he be pissed enough to go storming out of the apartment the minute they made it to Bucky’s room, kicked the door shut behind them? Or would he hide in his room, wrapping a pillow over his head and trying not to listen to the sounds in the bedroom ten feet from his? Or maybe he’d sink down against that wall, eyes shut tight as he cursed up at the ceiling and drowned in Bucky’s loud moans, soft cries, pressing his palm against the tent in his pants, hating himself as he carefully unzipped the zipper--

Or there was always the chance he'd be truly disgusted. By Bucky being a homosexual. It was one thing to hate-kiss a guy you despised during a fight, but it was a whole other ballgame to take it in the ass of your own volition. 

Steve didn't know which way Bucky swung and he had no idea in the world how it'd go if he did show up at the apartment connected at the mouth to another guy, but he was pretty sure if there was any way to make Steve jealous, that was it. 

Did he really wanna make Steve jealous? Like that? 

Bucky popped his lips, looking down at his drink just in time for Jack’s gaze to flick over to him.

He could feel the weight of those heavy, unsure blues as Bucky sat his glass down, gaze still locked on the swirling gold as he opened his mouth and spoke perfectly calmly,

“You ever fuck a man?” 

The beat of pause was enough for him to look over, crystal locking ~~straight~~ on that wide-eyed blue. 

“No,” Jack breathed and Bucky’s gaze cut away, shaking his head once. 

This was an extremely terrible idea. See, unlike Steve, he could admit that. 

“Bartender?” Bucky called, leaning a tad over the counter. “We’ll take another round.”

 

Twenty minutes later when Brook excused himself to pee, Jack was left on his stool to just stare at his drink, heart pounding, head throbbing. 

Maybe it was just him, but it felt like Bucky took goddamn forever. Then eventually he was sauntering back in, cheeks flushed and Jack lifted his finger for another round. 

 

Unfortunately he’d had a few things to work out at the office before he got to take off, like weasling his way into finding out what the fuck happened to Peggy, because god knows Bucky didn’t need to be interrogated more and Carter was pretty stubborn about not giving the full story which meant he had to wait until Steve got out of Duley’s office, interrogate _him_. 

So it was a while before he finally made it down to the street the bar was on, he’d heard Bucky and Jack decide to go for drinks and he figured today might be a pretty good day to join them.

He was on the sidewalk, just far enough out that he could see the bar pretty well, but it was dark and he wouldn’t’ve recognized the two of them stumbling out the door if it weren’t for their drunk asses shouting in very distinctive, albeit terrible, singing voices. 

Bright and shoving, Jack's slick suavity under the perfect swished hair, eyes lit up and mouth wide and beautiful around a beaming smile.

It was kinda fair they couldn’t see him from this far, plus they looked pretty distracted, leaning on each other and laughing loud, loose, happy. 

He was about to call out to them, shout from across the distance when Thompson slammed Barnes up against a brick wall at the mouth of the closest alley and Daniel’s jaw froze, unhinged. 

The way they were looking at each other, the fire in Barnes’ eyes he could see from here. 

Daniel blinked once and quickly spun around, lifting his crutch as quickly as he could to the shadows at the closest empty storefront. A deep breath and he peeked back around the corner, only. They were gone. 

Yeah, uh. He needed that drink after all. 

He managed to throw back three of the strongest shots they had and then his inhibitions were already gone, so. Wasn’t that hard to place the heat on his cheekbones, the jealous twisting pit in his gut. Even if they were just messing around, shoving each other around, the veins under his skin felt like they were knotting up, cutting all the oxygen off to his cells. 

Fuck, he couldn’t sit here on this bar stool and wallow. He needed to talk, right now, he needed to talk to someone who’d understand. Who could possibly listen to--

Peggy. He had to confess to somebody that he was pretty sure he’d been falling in love with the biggest asshole he knew and. There was only one damn person in the whole world that’d be able to keep that secret, and it was Peggy goddamn Carter. 

 

Angie Martinelli was a talker anyways, but when she was nervous, she was a goddamn chatterbox. 

She was pretty sure she managed to squeeze in more nonsense when she was pouring Peggy her cup of tea than every other diner conversation they'd had combined. 

“Angie, Angie,” Peggy teased, blowing on the surface of the steamy liquid. “Slow down, I promise, I'm listening. And I don't have any plans for the night, you've got my attention til dawn.” 

Angie gave her a little smile, wiping down the counter with a bit of a vigorous scrub. 

“There's just, um. A few things I'd like to talk to you about. My ma always says its best to just be out with it, like a band-aid, but I really don't want this one to sting, y’know?” 

A quick sigh and she tossed down the cloth, spinning to face Peggy with her pretty mouth pursed, both hands on the counter. 

“I know you don't...have a boyfriend and I know that don't mean you don't like somebody, but I was just hopin’. I mean. I really like spendin’ time with you English, and--”

“I like spending time with you too,” Peggy offered, taking a sip of her tea and making Angie twist her hands in her apron, smiling down at the checkered floor. 

Then her lead lifted back up, looking suddenly quite confident as she strode around the edge of the counter, reached out and took Peggy’s free hand, squeezing it once as that pretty face knit all sincere. 

“Now I don't want you sayin’ anything just to say it, English. Cause I mean it, and if you don't I promise, I pinky swear it, this don't have to change a single damn thing between us, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Peggy managed and it came out quite a bit higher, breathier than she’d planned and suddenly Angie was standing a lot closer, close enough she had to tip her head up from the stool. 

“Peggy Carter, I've known you were just about the prettiest damn thing I'd ever laid my eyes on the moment I met you but then I gotta spend all this time with you and I...” 

A careful, soft hand cupped her cheek and Peggy’s eyes went wide, one eyebrow cocking in surprise as she peered up at Angie’s sincerity, all that blue and gold so close she was inhaling flowers. 

Angie’s mouth had frozen, tipped open and stumbling over whatever the next thing she wanted to say was and Peggy was about to just reach up and put a hand in those pretty curls, drag Angie right down into a goddamn longsince anticipated kiss, and. 

And that's exactly when the diner door swiveled open with a thud. 

They both startled apart, Peggy’s head whipping around to the intruder shaking out his foot with a wince. 

“Daniel!” 

“Peggy, I need to talk to you,” he rushed, hauling his crutch forward and she spun all the way around on the chair, eyes wide because that last talk - not counting the one where he’d pulled her aside to yell about getting shot - was him kissing her. 

And she could swear, Angie had just been about to do the same, and how did things like this happen to her? 

“It's about Jack Thompson,” he clarified at the panic on her face and she paled even more. 

Had someone. It was really nothing, he'd just stitched her up but arguably her shirt had been somewhat off and. 

“What about him?” She managed, high and tight. 

“It's...private.”

“Don’t mind me,” Angie huffed, throwing up her hands. “But if it’s that private I wouldn't talk here. Just anyone could burst in at any moment and interrupt.”

It was a little bitter and Peggy raised an eyebrow at her, which Angie returned with a grim slightly apologetic smile. 

“Well I can hardly sneak through a window at the Griffith,” Sousa pointed out.

“There's always the dumbwaiter?” Peggy offered, turning with a much more apologetic smile to the pretty girl waiting at her side. “Angie, would you mind distracting Ms. Fry?” 

“Sure, Peg.” Angie flipped off the lights in the back, had already closed up everything before Peggy got here, lifting the tea kettle back onto its shelf and grabbing her purse. “Anything for you.”

She shot a bit of a glare at Daniel as she marched past him, snagged the keys off the wall to lock the revolving doors. 

“Why's she mad at me?” Sousa asked under his breath and Peggy slid down off her favorite stool. 

“It's. complicated,” Peggy said. 

It was. 

And it was about to get a hell of a lot more so. 

 

The brick thudded against his spine hard enough to send sparks all the way up it, laughter suddenly cut off for a harsh inhale. At least he was smart enough to squirm free, drag Thompson further down the shadows of the dark alley, all the way around the corner to the brick corridors behind the bar and that was as far as they made it before Thompson was slamming him back up against the brick wall again. 

It was cold out here but that was fine, it was about to get a hell of a lot warmer.

“You sure?” Jack breathed, forearms caging in either side of Bucky’s face, breathing heavy and smelling like whiskey in the inches between them.

Bucky tipped up his chin in challenge, eyes flashing as he stared down the close, steely blues, tumbled the words through parted lips. 

“I've been sure for a long time how I feel about fellas.”

The blue flickered down to his mouth, maybe he drew out the curled L a little obvious and that was it, last straw and Bucky’s hand flew up, clutching the back of that blonde head to destroy the last inch between them, mouths crashing together. 

Blonde eyebrows knit, hands gripping his shoulders tight as Bucky tipped up into the kiss and couldn’t help but think about how Steve kissed these lips once, so in a roundabout way it was almost like kissing Steve, almost. Blonde hair blue eyes defined structure, muscles, what fuckin’ more could he ask for. 

Jack tasted like alcohol, mouthing open-mouthed over his skin and biting his jaw, down to his neck, lips scratching slightly at the hint of stubble over his lip, just enough to be pretty damn sure this wasn't a girl he was with. 

That and Bucky’s hips were rolling forward, one hand splayed over Jack’s lower back to hold him close as he ground the heat in their tightened slacks together and Jack’s breath caught, _ah-ah_ , tight gripping hands as Bucky tipped his head back against the wall. 

Breathing heavy through lips plump and damp, already looking fucked out with the tip of his chin up, jawline defined sharp as Bucky looked down dark eyelashes with blown pupils and told him, 

“You can call me whatever name you want if I can call you his.” 

Jack made a sound, teeth sinking into his lower lip as the sharp gaze flicked down his suit and Bucky body rolled up to replace the bite with his own, tugging the tucked white shirt up out of buttoned pants as Jack’s hand flew for the wall, brick dust crumbling off with a choked gasp, lip popping back out of Bucky’s mouth as Bucky’s hands slid down for a zipper, didn’t matter whose. 

“Isn't there some like. Prep? Don’t you have to--” Jack was trying to say and Bucky shut him up with his mouth, popping the buttons on both their pants before breaking back off with a gasp.

“Already did,” he shot back, reaching up to loosen both their ties, free up tight collars. 

(A dirty bathroom in the back of a bar, staring at the mirror to splash cold water on his face, try to convince himself that this was a horrible idea. Then he saw the bar of soap. It wasn’t Vaseline, but he didn't exactly carry a jar in his pocket. Besides. Soap could serve two purposes, right? Bucky sucked in a breath and slicked up two fingers, popping the button on his pants and cursing the sky.) 

“You…” Jack trailed and this was _premeditated_ , fuck, the head rush hit so hard the wall might not hold him up and Bucky just glanced up briefly with that one-sided grin that said it pretty damn clear. Bucky Barnes got what he wanted. Then he was unzipping Jack’s pants and suddenly he really didn’t care. 

Strong arms strained as he lifted Bucky up against the wall and he had the most heated look on his beautiful face, bowed lips parted around a groan as Jack bumped up against him, warm and wet between Barnes’ parted legs, both their suits disheveled, pants shoved halfway down thighs but that was all they needed. 

The dark head threw back hard against the wall, brick dust crumbling around sharp angles, the shocked, wide open mouth sucking in air as Jack pushed forward, careful tilt of his hips before muscle caved and he shoved inside, a strangled sound choked deep in Bucky’s throat.

“Ah- _ahh_ \--”

Fuck, he’d never been so dizzy in his life, one hand gripping the back of Barnes’ neck, knuckles scraping against brick as he dragged his hips back and shoved up again, shuddering with a low groan as two hands scrambled against his shoulders, thick, strong thighs wrapped hard around his waist. 

Their belts jingled against metal clasps across thighs as he pushed their bodies flush again, breathing hard and fast with how fucking tight Bucky was, fuck, he’d never been in anyone this tight and burning in his entire life combined. 

The hand holding Barnes’ hip gripped stronger, thrusting harder, smoother, faster into the heat that was more than enough to drown out the cold wind rustling dark hair over Barnes’ dipped forehead. 

He kept skidding up against the wall with every shove together, rocking up and down all heavy weight and muscle, pretty crystal eyes fluttered shut in contrast to the tipped open mouth and there was no way he wasn’t leaving bruises with how rough he was clawing Jack’s shoulderblades. 

Shifting just a little closer and Jack snapped his pelvis up, deep enough to jolt a harsh cry from Barnes’ mouth and the last fucking thing they needed was more sound than the smack of their bodies together in the shadows. 

Jack slapped a hand over Bucky’s mouth, shoving his head back against the wall with it and crystal eyes rolled back, whimpering pitifully behind Jack’s fingers. One of the hands released his shoulderblade to reach down in the ridiculously small space between their bodies, tugging himself off as Jack fucked him into the wall dirty over broken breaths and muffled cries. 

The blue eyes cut down pretty quick, mouth open around the quiet pants, puffs of smoke in the cold air fogging out everything but the harsh rhythm between their rocking bodies, the shoving heat wrecking his brain into fucking pieces. 

He was jolting against the wall with every rough snap and there was no way his pomade wasn’t fucked to hell. Bucky just kept making all these noises against Jack’s hand, panting and nipping until his palm and fingers were wet enough to have to press harder to keep from slipping and Jack wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were squeezed shut and Bucky didn't care, with Jack’s head dipped like that, the blonde crown made it even easier to pretend. 

Pretend the blonde hair and strong arms were Steve. 

Even if Steve would never _never_ take him like this.

It was filthy and harsh, bordering on shame even as he thrusted into Bucky hard, every snap of his hips rough, animalistic. Bucky was drowning, in the sensation, the sting and the slide and he was being stretched so far, so fucking deep he could feel the heat in his stomach.

Knocking their bodies together again and again, sliding and pulsating through the groaning heat, eyelashes fluttering over dark burning eyes as Jack rocked up into him. Lungs stuttering over the panting through parted shiny lips, long strands of blonde flopping over his sweat-sheened forehead.

Cold December wind whipping pieces of bare skin, fluttering Jack’s loosened tie, battering his open collar against the exposed skin of his throat and upper chest but the shivers down Bucky’s spine weren’t for the cold, couldn’t be when his body was on fucking fire everywhere it was touching Jack’s. 

That was the shudder running through his bones, the boil under his skin, it was all heat and twisted as dirty as the hand clapped over his mouth. The overwhelming drag of Jack in and out of his body so fucking quick, hips slapping up against his ass hard enough he could feel his skin vibrate, everything swirling and desperate as the moans behind the clapped hand started shifting to staccato cries, muffled _ah-ah-ah-ah-ah_ \--

The palm over his mouth covered a lot, but he wasn’t sure a ballgag could’ve kept him quiet when the coil in his stomach burst, a sharp twist of his wrist timed right with a violent rocking thrust and Bucky screamed, shuddering as the cry echoed under the makeshift muzzle, Steve’s name bleeding into the thick quiet of the alley.

Everything went white and distant, swinging so high his hands couldn’t shake as they jacked off up under his nice undershirt, painting his stomach and ruining white cloth, broken sounds and convulsing muscle tightening up in a jolt so fast and goddamn hot Thompson didn’t last another thrust and a half before he was crashing into the high. 

One hand bracing on the wall as he jerked and Bucky’s eyes rolled back in his head, moaning low and vibrating against Jack’s fingers. Barely fighting the urge to pull one of the thick fingers in his mouth and suck hard, the flood of heat in his body was overwhelming enough as Thompson stuttered and cried out softly, choked off, near hurt sounding. 

His hand was damp with sweat and other various bodily fluids but he didn’t care, reaching up to tug Jack’s wrist away from his lips, dragging their mouths back together with a rough hand on the back of Jack’s neck, all the broken cries tumbling muffled over Bucky’s tongue now as he full-body shuddered one more time and let Jack bite his flushed lips as the warmth pulsed all the way up behind his goddamn abs. 

Their mouths broke back apart on twin rough gasps and Bucky realized quite suddenly he didn’t have a goddamn ounce of strength left in his weak muscles, sagging back against the brick wall, too busy trying to breathe to notice that Jack’s lungs were just as damn shot as his were. 

“Oh god,” Jack managed to gasp and Bucky sucked in a burst of oxygen, eyes slipping closed for one more moment of quiet bliss before the silence broke again, barely more than a whisper, “Oh _god_.” 

A weak hand planted on Jack’s chest, shoving him an inch backwards and he got the memo pretty quick, slipping free and stumbling back, buttoning himself back up quicker than Bucky could grab the damn slacks from around his thighs. 

Thompson staggered two steps then he was sagging against the wall beside Bucky, staring up at the sky and most definitely freaking out but Bucky was doing his goddamn best to stay calm, to suck in cold air and try to clear his damn head. 

First of all, he’d sobered up entirely by the time Jack had climbed inside him, so that excuse was out the fucking window and he had to say, based on rolling his head across brick to study the eyes-shut, heaving chest profile beside him, Thompson looked pretty damn sober too. 

He hadn't moved an inch from where Jack let his legs fall, although it really wasn’t about the shock. If he moved, the brick wouldn't be propping him up anymore and Bucky honestly couldn't feel his legs. 

He'd been acting like he knew what the fuck he was doing but he didn't, god he had no idea. He'd been sucked off once by a guy in the gay side of Brooklyn, short blonde thing and he'd told Bucky everything he needed to know about how this kind of sex went, but fuck, that was a whole other ballgame than being shoved up against a wall to get his brains fucked out in an alley. 

“Bucky,” Jack finally said, all broken up and Bucky was about ready to listen to what he had to say as he was to stand up and Charleston around this goddamn alleyway. 

“Order a cab, just in case the whiskey’s still in your system,” Bucky told him, voice as scratched up as the skin on his lower back. 

“Okay,” Thompson whispered, then the pretty blonde head was slamming back against the wall, damn near denting the goddamn brick. “Fuck, okay.” 

He could place the moment the blue eyes landed on him but Bucky wasn’t returning the gaze, eyes closed as he swallowed and tipped his face up against the black night sky. 

It was probably the most sickening thought he’d had all night, but Brooklyn looked damn near beautiful like that, hair all disheveled, curling damp over his forehead in a little swirl, strong neck stretched out, leaning lax against the brick wall with his cheekbones flushed and lips swollen and parted around little puffs of cold air up at the stars. Dimple in his chin and crinkles at the corners of his eyes, breathing heavy enough he could see his flushed chest rising and falling beneath the popped buttons of his shirt and Jack looked away so quickly he felt something in his neck crack but it wasn’t quick enough, it was nowhere near quick enough. 

Fuck. Brooklyn told him to order a cab. He didn't want him here. Why would he? 

Jack ran a stressed hand through his hair, destroying it if it somehow wasn’t already, then he was pushing off the wall, shoes scuffing against the pavement as he started for the mouth of the alley, only glancing behind him a dozen fucking times. 

Jesus fucking Christ. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. His hands were shaking and he fucking wished it was the cold but shoving them hard in his pockets wasn’t doing a thing and he smelled like sex, like Bucky’s aftershave and he had no idea what any of it fucking meant, it was fucking terrifying and he had no idea how the fuck he was supposed to stop freaking out and--

The second he stepped out of the alley a gust of wind hit him, blasting his face and his rumpled suit and his shaking bones and Jack ducked his head down, walking three paces too quick in the bitter cold but he didn’t know what to do, where the fuck he was supposed to go because he couldn’t just go _home_ , how was he supposed to just lay there and think about everything that’d just happened, it was going to swallow him whole and he had to go somewhere, he had to fucking talk to someone, or scream, or hit things, or something, he’d come so fucking hard his knees had almost given out and Jack had no idea how he ended up in the phone booth but the next thing he knew there was someone picking up to interrupt the ring. 

“And who might be calling at this hour of night?” A harsh voice bit over the line and Jack squeezed a hand over his eyes, fingertips dragging across his forehead as he managed to croak out, sounding somewhere between frozen and hoarse as crumbling brick,

“Can I speak to Peggy Carter? It’s an emergency.” 

“It better be,” the voice huffed, then Jack was sagging against the side of the phone booth and convincing his lungs to keep working again. 

Finally the static cut with the most familiar kind voice he’d heard in his entire goddamn life.

“Hello?” British accent and all.

“Peggy,” he choked, and the little sound of surprise said she’d figured out exactly who was calling. “I’ve. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

 

She (begrudgingly) told him her room number, how to find it from the outside, warned him of the risk of scaling the wall to the window but he was a pretty desperate man right now, he could take another few minutes of brick under his fingertips. 

Well, clearly, he was pretty desperate, he was running to the one person who’d betrayed his trust deeper than anyone else since the goddamn war. She outed him about his white flag story to Rogers, but something told him she really wasn't outing this. 

Carter was already waiting, one hand on her hip as he climbed through the window and all but collapsed right there on her floor. He was pretty sure he was running entirely on fumes and adrenaline right now and it must’ve been pretty obvious to Peggy too, if the sudden softening expression was any indication. 

“I’m sorry to just--” A waving hand as he picked himself up off the carpet, gripping the open windowsill for a beat too long. “--barge in on you like this, Carter.” 

“You’re not the first, and I highly doubt you’ll be the last.” She gave him a tight smile, waving for a chair that was already sitting in the middle of the room as she propped on the edge of her bed, curls bouncing with the cocked head and fuck, she looked so much like Brook, how had he never noticed before?

Same cut to the chase, too. 

“Is this about whatever you were discussing with James?” Carter asked and Jack froze, halfway between standing and the chair.

“How do you know about…” He was staring wide-eyed at her and Peggy pursed red lips, waved a manicured hand like it was nothing, although if she was going on the word _discuss_ instead of _fuck_ , then yeah, he supposed it would be nothing. 

“It’s a bit of a long story, but let's just say you’re not the first with wild drama tonight. So.” Another waving hand as he sat down all the way, hesitant and slow as his bones creaked in protest, weighed down and stiff with the dried sweat under his suit. “Out with it.” 

What a poignant choice of words.

“It's a long story,” he managed and suddenly crawling right back out that window and going home to sleep for six days sounded like a much better idea than confessing to anyone anything that’d just happened, ever. 

“I’m listening quite intently,” she offered and Jack gave her a look.

“I don’t think...that’s such a good idea.” 

She had to think he was mad, climbing all the way up here just to clam his mouth shut but for some reason, just like in that stupid factory, Carter’s face didn’t twist up in disgust or annoyance, all that steady strong surety instead. 

“Look, Thompson, no matter what it is, it's not gonna change my opinion of you. I mean I already think you're an asshole,” she pointed out but there was a pretty smile on her face when he glanced her way and Jack sucked in a breath, eyebrows knit as he stared pensively at her flowered wall. 

“Jack, I promise. You can tell me _anything_.” There was this sincerity in it and maybe he was just a fucking sucker for women or maybe there was something about Peg that just felt so honest or maybe he was just so exhausted he’d hit the point of completely fallen apart and he honestly didn’t have anything left to lose on the inside, might as well spill it all to someone before it destroyed his outsides too.

And he might as well start from the beginning. Jack drummed heavy fingers on his thigh, doing his damndest not to think about the chafe marks his pants had made underneath where his palm was resting and opened his mouth to ruin his own life one more damn time.

“Rogers and I...kissed.”

The room fell perfectly fucking silent. A beat and a half and he risked glancing up, over at Peggy, who was just blinking at him. He twisted up his best asshole smile, but it was nowhere near the awful under the surface.

“Well, Marge, if I’dda known all I’d had to do to shut you up--”

“Wait. You kissed Steve Rogers.” Incredulous and not exactly worded like a question but the worst part was it was kinda hysteric too, which meant high pitched, which meant neighbors and the fucking evil, crazy landlady downstairs. 

Jack batted a hand at her, brows furrowing deeper and mouth pursing.

“Keep your voice down. And no, he kissed me.”

“Steve Rogers. Captain America.”

“Yeah, that's the one.”

“Is that why you two hate each other?” 

“What? No. I don't know, probably.” 

“Jesus Christ Jack. You know that's illegal.” She finally unfroze, still a little on the hysteric side and yeah, he supposed for somebody who used to be Captain America’s flame, it’d be a little weird to hear, but she fucking _owed_ him. 

~~Besides, who was she to scold when just a little while ago she’d been about to kiss someone of her same gender, quite happily. But they weren’t _mortal enemies_ in risk of outing each other and _ruining each other’s lives_.~~

“Yes, Carter, I know. But that's not even. I mean, that's not even the complicated part.” 

“It gets more complicated than that,” she deadpanned, entirely disbelieving and Jack leaned back in the chair, one eyebrow arching up as he waved an arm around the apartment. 

“Yeah. You got beer or something?” 

“Actually, no. No, I've got a whiskey.” 

 

“You did WHAT with Bucky Barnes!??”

“I don't know how it happened! One minute we were singing drunk songs then I was pushing him into a wall and he just dragged me behind the alley, and.” And we fucked, he almost said and funny, how after all this time, it was that moment it all chose to sunk in again. “Ohh god.”

A ragged breath, fingers over his mouth only fuck, his hand had only just been over Bucky’s, keeping him hushed so he didn’t scream and get them arrested for screwing behind the goddamn bar. 

Peggy was just staring. For a really, really, long time.

“Did you kiss him?” 

“What?” 

“James, did you kiss James,” she clarified and jeez, that was exactly what he was wondering, who she’d been talking about, not what the fuck kinda question that was.

“We had sex, that’s usually, uh. _part of it_ ,” he hissed, and after everything he told her how was _that_ the thing that made all the color drain from her face?

Peggy took a deep breath, steeling herself and fuck, if the questions were gonna get worse--

“Did any of his bodily fluids get…” a waving hand, blush deep enough to match her lipstick but she managed to blurt it out anyways. “...in you?” 

“ _Jesus_ Carter, what the fuck kinda-- No! No. It was...the other way around.” He swallowed tight, eyes averted as he wondered when the hell this had turned into an interrogation and what kind of _person_ asked _questions_ like that.

“I have to make a call.”

“You have to. You have to _what_?” 

Peggy already jumped off her bed, was headed for the door but Jack was freaking the fuck out and that meant he was faster, grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her back around before she could march out that door and ruin his entire life. 

“Peggy, you _can't_.” It was so fucking desperate he’d pity himself if his heart wasn’t pounding too hard to think.

“Stop fretting, I'm not outing you. Or him. But I have to make this call.” 

“You're just gonna leave me here, after I just told you that--”

“Some things are bigger than your fucked up love life, Thompson!” 

Snap and Peggy was marching right back for the door again, almost made it before he grabbed her wrist, yanked her a foot backwards on stumbling heels, right back to the pathetic pleading. 

“Take me with you, wherever you're going, take me with you.” 

“No!” Outright shock and Carter yanked her arm back, rubbing her wrist and wincing as she tugged new stitches. “Bloody what for?” 

“Insurance.”

“I'm not going to tell,” she hissed and Jack leaned down close, made sure that pretty head was listening to him real and serious. 

“Yeah? Like how you weren't gonna tell Rogers about the white flag story?” 

There went the color in her face again. “Listen, Jack, I’m sorry about that but this isn't even about you, not really.”

“Is it about Brook? Barnes, I mean.” 

“Well. Yes but--” 

“Then take me with you.” 

“God _dammit_. Men.” A huff and she threw up a hand, ushering him right across the room for the window. “Fine, but you’re donating a blood sample for analysis and you’re not protesting for one second about it.” 

“Yes ma'am.” Jack hauled up the windowframe, one leg outside before he suddenly turned around, furrowing his eyebrows again. “But a blood sample?” 

“Yes, to see if there’s any trace of transmission.” A waving hand for him to go down, meet her out front but Thompson wasn’t going anywhere until he figured out what the fuck was going on.

“Transmission of what?”

Peggy sucked in a breath, one hand on the doorknob as she turned back around slowly, decided fuck it, there were enough goddamn secrets now it’d be safe, and told Jack Thompson the most life-changing thing he’d heard tonight.

“Bucky Barnes has the serum.”

 

She left Thompson in Howard’s capable hands and rambling mouth,

“Stay in town, don't go far, I'll test this blood tonight, Peggy why am I testing this again?”

She promised she’d tell him, just not right now, run the test and we’ll talk. 

Then Howard was grumbling and Jack was eerily silent and pale and Peggy stalked out of that room as fast as she goddamn could. 

Dammit, fuck men. -- wait, no, they were doing that to each other just fine. 

And on top of all of the fucking drama - Jack and _Bucky_ , she just honestly could not fucking comprehend - was this goddamn thing with Daniel. 

It’d been a complete shitshow earlier, sneaking him up to her room in the dumbwaiter while a very patient and somewhat miffed Angie distracted their evil landlady. 

“You sure you won't get in trouble?” he asked, all concerned and soft as he always was and frankly, she’d been in the middle of a rather important conversation and they hadn’t been properly alone, let alone in her _room_ since he’d kissed her and she’d really just like to get this conversation over with as soon as goddamn possible. 

“I won’t get in the slightest bit of trouble if we don't get caught. Now what's this about Jack?” 

“I know we still haven't talked,” Sousa blurted out. “--about how I kissed you.” 

Her eyes shot to the ceiling but the spiderwebs and cracks weren’t doing a damn thing about her current situation. Pursed red lips as she turned a tight smile back on Daniel, hands squeezed together in her lap.

“We haven't,” she agreed, wondering distantly if this situation could possibly get more complicated and goodness, if only she’d known. 

“I really like you, I do, Peggy and I. Understand if you completely hate me for this.” Soft worried brown eyes as he shifted in the chair she’d dragged to the middle of the room for him and Peggy at least managed not to say out loud the one thing she couldn’t stop thinking ever since she realized that she might not have to ever be with one, 

Why were men _always_ so damn dramatic? 

“...I was on my way to meet up with Jack and Bucky at a bar earlier this evening and. They were. Outside, singing at first but then it uh. Turned into what looked like a pretty intense conversation and…”

“And…” She prompted, rolling a hand as Daniel chewed on his lip, looking terribly distraught for the three seconds before it burst out of his mouth like a wild, mis-thrown grenade. 

“...and I think I like Jack,” he blurted. 

It caught her so off guard her jaw literally dropped for the floor. 

“You...what???”

 _What??_ Thompson? Jack Thompson?

“I just keep getting so jealous and I know it's wrong and it's not like I don't like you, I really really do Peggy and I wouldn't be telling you this if I had a single other friend to talk to but I don't besides maybe Steve but he hates Jack’s guts and I don't want him to hate me too when I don’t have a lot of friends and frankly neither does he and--”

“Daniel! Calm down, and lower your voice, for godsakes.” The frantic rambling, rolling hands halted, looked just flat out panicked now, brown eyes flicking between her and the door.

“I don’t hate you, by the way, this is just. Very complicated,” she muttered and that’s when Angie rapped on her door, whispering urgently and quite muffled.

“Ms. Fry’s coming up the stairs!” 

“Shit, we have to get you back in the dumbwaiter right now--”

“Peggy--”

“Later, Daniel! You will have bigger problems than ill-timed crushes if I get kicked out.” 

He bustled out of her room without any more protest, looking terribly guilty and still quite frantic as she bundled him into the dumbwaiter, cursing as she tried to find the right angle to fit in the crutch and a couple girls had Ms. Fry and her loud, nosy self blocked down the hall then the barrier broke and she was storming around the corner, just in time for Peggy to wipe her forehead and smile tiredly from her open door. 

A suspicious glare and the Landlady from Hell stalked back down the stairs for the lobby, not without peering suspiciously in Peggy’s room at her empty chair first. 

She and Angie sighed twin breaths of relief as the diffused devil disappeared, then light curls were flopping as Angie glanced back her way, twinkle right back in her eyes as she indicated for Peggy’s open bedroom door. 

“Could we finish our talk?” 

“Um.” She turned bright red, swinging the door open wider, gesturing Angie inside and trying not to smile like an idiot. “Yes, why don't you. Come into my room.”

The door shut behind them with a click and Angie spun around on a heel, taking in Peggy’s slump against the door and smiling, taking a careful step closer, lips rolling in with anticipation, bright excitement that Peggy could feel pounding between her ribs, wide-eyed and parted lips as Angie’s fingers closed around her wrist. 

And of course, that was the exact moment another fist was rapping on her door and Peggy nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound. 

“Carter? There’s a call for you in the lobby!”

And who was it, but speak of the devil, Jack Thompson. 

Angie’s fingertips traced the tip of her pinky as Peggy held the phone to her ear, making a face at the kinda precious impatient antics. Then the minute she hung up she was giving Ang her most apologetic expression and Angie threw up a hand, following Peggy up the stairs passively.

“I’ll go stand guard in the hall.”

“I’m so sorry,” Peggy told her and Angie gave her a little smile, squeezing her hand. 

“It’s fine. Now go fix another crisis.” She opened up Peggy’s door for her and there she went, landing back in her room mere seconds before Jack Thompson climbed through the window with _his_ revelation. 

Sex with Bucky. 

It still hadn’t sunk in yet. It was just, she knew Bucky really well now, they were close. Close enough she’d seen him in action, seen how charming and gorgeous he could be and _that_ , the man that’d danced her dirty over dinner the other night, was hoisted up on a wall in the back of an alley by Jack Thompson?

She was still shaking her head at the fucking _absurdity_ of it all when she finally trudged up to her floor for the third time tonight, tired shifting up into an appreciate curve as Angie pushed off the wall she’d been leaning on, waiting all this time. 

“Hey, English, fancy seeing you here,” Angie called and Peggy shook her head once, leaning a little heavy on the stair rail as she took the last few steps, trying not to wince at the strain to her bandaged side. 

“And I quite fancy seeing you, Miss Martinelli,” Peggy called back and maybe it was a little bold but it was also late and she was tired, exhausted, and the beaming smile on Angie’s face made it absolutely worth it. 

Ang wrapped an arm around her waist the minute she was within reach and Peggy quite happily took the touch of support, strangely appreciative of how strong Angie wasn’t - yes, she had plenty of strength in those kicking, dancing legs, the waitressing arms carrying heavy trays all day, but it was nothing like the overpowering strength men were constantly throwing her way as they guided her places and as much as she could get on board with Steve Rogers’ gorgeous muscles, it was nice to just have a goddamn _break_ from the _years_ of testosterone. 

“Alright. That was wildly dramatic. Can you come to my room now? I know it's getting quite late..” 

“Of course, English.” A pretty, honest little smile and Peggy took a deep breath, linking her arm through Angie’s as she pushed open her bedroom door one more time, pulses quick and blushing smiles on their faces as they stepped inside together. 

And who was sitting right in the middle of her bed? Steve Rogers. 

“Bloody hell!” 

Steve startled and Angie made this high pitched noise of frustration and turned right back around to step out of the room again. 

“I'll be next door,” she said, tight and high and kinda drifting and Peggy shut the door behind her, spinning back to Steve and throwing up a hand in desperation. 

What could _possibly_ be happening now?

 

It should probably have been the last thing on his list of shit to worry about, but he and Steve had grown up poor enough to wear their mismatched, shittily fitting clothes through thick and thin, it just felt weird and wrong to toss his soiled undershirt in the closest dumpster. 

Well, his undershirt was basically destroyed, sticky and sweaty but at least his button-up was totally manageable. He wasn’t sure how long passed between when Jack left and when he finally found the strength to lift his arms from his dead sides, unbuttoning his overshirt slow, careful. 

Shouldered it off with a wince, the source(s) of which he found later, too busy peeling off the stiff undershirt, wiping down his sticky chest with it and deciding he’d wait for a shower for the rest, he was really not inclined to take his pants off again in this freezing cold. 

So it was just his chest, the sweat sheen across his forehead then he was balling up the shirt to toss in the closest dumpster, making a quiet little noise of victory as his weak arms still somehow managed to arc it in the bin from all the way over here. 

Then it was buttoning back up his white overshirt without anything on under it, slick material sliding over his skin and making him shiver. 

Well. There was no point in making Steve jealous when they didn't even make it back to his apartment. But Bucky wasn’t sure he could do that anyways, bring himself to fuck another man in the sacred place he shared with Steve and honestly, he was still reeling that he fucked a man at all. 

Actually, to amend that, got fucked. Rough and hard and Jesus, he was aching. Two steps off from the brick and a hand was shooting out to steady him against the wall, legs shaky as he tried to catch his breath. 

Fuck, was this what Steve felt like after all those alley fights? Broken and too goddamn weak to even make it home? 

There was a pretty bad bruise low on his hip, finger imprints that made him hiss to touch. At least it was hidden, all the way down under the band of his boxers. So much for not taking his pants off again in the cold, that was a nasty ass bruise. 

Alright, inspection time preferably _before_ he got home and Steve saw all the marks on him first. 

The brick had scraped up his lower back from the repetitive up-down motion on the wall with his shirt rucked up like it’d been. Fuck, that was sensitive to the touch, scratched up enough for a couple little smears of blood across his fingers. Fantastic. His ass just ached though, nothing sharp, so that was good. Feeling around wasn’t as efficient when he didn’t have a mirror, but he was pretty sure his jaw might be bruised, lips still all puffy and dark. The hand over his mouth had pressed pretty damn hard. 

Speakin’a which, the back of his head did _not_ feel good, but there were no bumps and it looked like that was the worst of it, so. All in all, most definitely survivable. 

And on the bright side, he'd gone an entire like. Evening without thinking once about Zola or triggers or fucked up knives carving up his skin, which said a lot for the kind of day he'd had. 

However, the walk all the way home from here was gonna be _hell_. 

Bucky paused at the mouth of the alley, checking down at the state of pure disheveled and decided yeah, there was nothing to do about that, let the world think he was homeless for the night, he didn’t give a fuck. All he wanted was a warm bath and to sleep for like. Years. 

He made it a block before his legs were threatening to give out again. 

Leaned up against a wall to catch his breath and Bucky cursed out loud at the sky. So much for the reckless fuckery being just Carter and Rogers. 

He was still debating how in the world he was gonna make it back in this state when the car pulled up. 

Obviously, his first reaction was to freak out, cars pulling over when there was no one on the street but you in the middle of the night in a bit of a sketchy part of town was never good, but considering that he didn’t even have a damn knife on him, let alone an ounce of adrenaline left to fight with, this was about the last thing in the world he needed. 

Well, until the back door opened up and Bucky let out a rush of relieved air because this was exactly the _only_ thing he needed. 

“Bucky??” A high pitched voice called, all incredulous and sugary and Bucky lifted a hand, pushing off the wall and only stumbling a tad. God, he’d never been so elated to see a familiar, annoying face in his life. 

“Dottie, is that you?” 

“Why it _sure_ is!! What could you possibly be doin’ out this late, Sarge?” Batting eyelashes and Bucky leaned a hand on the roof, giving her a grim smile as he bent down and tried not to wince. “And oh my, you look like a wreck! You need a ride, honey?” 

Considering he was disheveled, guilty, sore, broken, and he couldn't walk totally right, he was gonna go with Yeah, he needed a ride. He had no idea how the timing could be so damn great, how Dottie could possibly have passed exactly right now, offered him a ride when he needed it most but. 

He honestly didn't think too long and hard about it. Didn't think long and hard about it at all. 

Just gave her his brightest most sincere smile and climbed gratefully into the backseat, gritting his teeth against a preemptive whimper as he looked down at the plush cushions he really didn't want to sit on. 

To be fair, he was weak and more than a little distracted, but he still should've seen it coming. 

He was still debating which way to sit that would make him ache the least but before he could decide, something pinched his neck and Bucky’s head snapped up, nearly hitting the ceiling. 

“Wha…” That was all he got out before the needle withdrew from his neck and the next thing he knew,

Everything went black. 

 

 

Steve Rogers was sitting in the middle of her bed and Peggy Carter had no idea how this kept happening to her. 

“Oh for gods sakes, I am not running a men's cry house!”

Two hands thrown up and Steve just looked downright confused, which wasn't all that different from the puppy dog face he gave her sometimes and Peggy huffed, peering out the peephole to make sure the hallway was still clear. 

“What’s wrong with Angie?” Steve sounded worried, really worried and Peggy sighed, pushing away from the door and pacing into the middle of the room to kick her heels off. 

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.” Wiggle and hop to get off the second one then she was stretching out her toes, padding to the closest to open it up and throw her shoes in the neat little pile on the floor. “And that’s the problem, all these things in the way, it’s taking so damn long.”

“What?” Steve sounded genuinely confused, more concerned than he should be, it was just a crush after all and they'd most definitely work it out just fine on their own. 

“Nothing.” Peggy sighed, crossing the room to scoop up her makeup chair and set it back at her vanity, Rogers was the kind to just sit right on her bed, unlike her previous two guests. A spinning heel that nearly caught her nylons and she gave Steve the most patient smile she had right now. “What’s your crisis, angsty boy number three?” 

The blue eyes were wounded as he gave her a look and Peggy plopped down on her bed beside him, sighing heavily. 

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.” A little huff and Steve gave her his smallest little smile, reaching over to grab her hand. 

“Um. Me too. That’s actually...that’s actually why I’m here.” 

She rubbed a thumb over his knuckles and Steve drew in a breath, looking rather shaken as he knit his eyebrows, head ducked, staring down. 

“Bucky didn't come home.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, he didn't come home. Tonight, at all.” 

Well, she supposed it was quite late, it made sense he was worried, especially after all that nonsense today in the office. And that was just the nonsense Steve knew about. 

“I can make some calls,” she started, standing up off the bed but there was another strong hand suddenly grabbing her arm before she could go anywhere. 

“Peg. Peg, no. I've got this awful feeling.”

“Rogers, I'm sure he's fine, he's had a rough few days.” One eyebrow cocked up, muttering a _quite rough_ under her breath.

“Peggy, listen to me.”

“I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, I'll get Howard on the line, Jarvis would be more than happy to--”

“Peggy!”

She spun around from the door, sharp and silent. 

Steve was shaking. 

“Peggy. I have a feeling. It's... I _know_. In my stomach, in my chest. I know.” The blue eyes were damn near about watering over and he looked so damn terrified as he said it one more time, hollow, echoing, haunted. 

“Bucky didn't come home.”

And that time she heard him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Bing Crosby's [I Can't Begin To Tell You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bfh0_Qa1Jo), which is super fucking fitting for this chapter friends
> 
> hahaha I warned you all I'm sorry
> 
> I PROMISE THE NEXT CHAPTER IS NOT LIKE THIS
> 
> personally I think the next chapter is fucking hilarious, so there is that to look forward to. When...I get back from Europe and training. Which is like the end of August? I'm so sorry? I will hopefully be writing anyways but I love you all for reading and I completely understand if you're upset I'm upset too 
> 
> (also, I know it's not common at all for fanfics to have one of the main pairings have sex with other people, however, that does happen in real life and I am gonna stick to my guns about it, because as much as it may not look like that right now, this is actually a good thing in terms of what you all came for)
> 
> anyways. much love to you all. 
> 
> xx


	9. tell 'em I've got those St. James Infirmary blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ??? It's been so long I'm so sorry life has been WILD but I finally started writing again in the beginning of September and it took me a solid two weeks to even feel comfortable writing again and I'm still slowly getting back into my grove so be a little patient but I promise I'll be pumping out that - speedy writ high qual shit (TM) - asap
> 
> Warnings: violence, period-accurate internal and external homophobia, awful war stories, systemic homophobia of soldiers, drugged-up delusions, puking, implications to torture, general clusterfuckery
> 
> No offense intended to ballerinas from Ohio.

Jazz. Jazz, the revolution that shook the world and tumbled feet into tapping jumping wild new forms of life, a higher level of existence, thriving. 

Jazz, with its scoops and twirls and syncopated rhythms. Grace notes and solos and impromptu freeform. Complicated and messy and enthralling, like watching a train jump its tracks into a frozen river only to dissipate into colorful fog - 

Jazz, with its unforgiving foggy draw and its deep blue twists and brilliant orange peekaboo corners. 

That's kinda what all this had become. 

Jazz. 

 

In theory, one wouldn’t mind two extremely attractive people knocking on one’s door at six in the morning on a Saturday. Even when those two attractive people were also the most kick-ass hardcore people you knew, right?

Except that one of those hardcore kickass people he was pretty into and the other one he’d kissed and now knew everything, especially about who he was into, so Daniel actually really did mind when he opened his door at six am to see Peggy Carter standing on his stoop with blonde, beautiful, asshole Jack Thompson in tow. 

“Daniel!” Peggy greeted way too cheerily and he replied just as cheerily with perfect silence and eyes the size of saucers. 

“Um,” he managed, teetering a little dangerously on one foot.

“We need you to come with us.” Jack’s voice was wayyy more serious than Daniel’d heard him, probably ever, which wasn’t doing much to help the whole not-falling-over thing. 

“Immediately,” Peggy tacked on, one eyebrow arched and red heel tapping. 

Jack was giving him this look under the brim of his hat and Peggy was giving him this very different but also eerily similar look under the brim of her hat and Daniel was just feeling very overwhelmed. 

A forearm propped on his doorway and Jack’s expression was starting to slip into impatience and somewhere in his head a bell finally went off and Daniel managed to stumble his way backwards a step, words coming out even more clumsy. 

“Um. Okay, uh, let me go get...my leg, here, come in.” 

Jack squinched up his nose as he stepped in and Peggy barely made it through the doorway before Daniel was shooting her Looks of Death over Jack’s shoulder. 

Yeah, if only this could be so simple. 

_Calm down, it’s not about you,_ she mouthed behind Thompson’s blonde head, lips sealing shut right before Jack spun around, arm gesturing for the warm gold living room. 

“You've got a nice place here, Dannyboy. Quite a bit closer to the SSR than mine.” Signature Jack Thompson charm, lips pursed as the slick blonde head tipped, nodding to himself as the room glowed under keen blues. “Big enough for two, really...I bet you get lonely in all this extra space, huh?”

It didn't cross his mind that the wide smile spreading across his face could possibly be taken as suggestive until he saw Carter’s eyes go wide, Daniel's already wide to mirror. 

His gaze cut away so fast it almost beat the speed of the heart in his chest. Shit shit shit. 

A cleared throat and he finally lifted his head to offer the tightest smile at Sous he could manage but he could feel the _weight_ of Carter’s eyes on him and there was no fucking way she wasn't figuring it out right now. 

Fuck, why wasn't she as dumb as she was supposed to be? Of all goddamn women to work with, to confide in, it had to be Peggy fucking Carter? 

“Uh. Do you need. Help with--”

“No, no, sorry. I got it. Just give me five I'll be right back…”

Sousa’s words faded down the little hallway with him and Peggy crossed both arms over her chest, studying the red on Thompson’s cheekbones that damn near matched the burgundy couch. 

Well. Everything had happened rather recently but still, there were a lot of blank spaces and questions. It never made much sense that Jack was with Bucky because he was...into Bucky. 

Well of course that made sense, everyone loved Bucky Barnes, but no one went from “straight” to “homosexual intercourse” inside of a few weeks. Right? 

Obviously knowing what she knew about Bucky’s feelings for Steve, it was pretty damn clear why _he_ slept with Thompson. Couldn't miss the physical similarities if you tried. 

And well. If you squinted and cocked your head and ignored like. A lot of things, Bucky could almost be a surrogate for Sousa. 

Jack always _had_ been strangely soft around him. Teasing, with pretty smiles instead of asshole smirks. 

He was totally into Daniel too, wasn't he? 

Jesus fuck, was anybody in this world straight anymore? 

 

“This is a lot of people,” Angie leaned over to whisper, setting down her tray of serving tea and Peggy didn't bother protesting the filling cups this time - _did you see how stressed those boys’ faces are, English? The least I can do is make some damn tea._

She shot Angie a tight smile, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned back to survey the little crowd packed into Howard Stark’s favorite red and gold tea room. It was a lot of people. 

Well, not _that_ many in number, but there was a lot of personality and importance and involvement all packed into this room. Quite crowded, like every different world she’d been living in was suddenly colliding all at once. 

“Family and friends, fellow scientists and kickass agents, and-- who is she again? Diner girl making tea?” Howard offered a confused, overdramatic raised eyebrow and Anna Jarvis reached over the space between their couches to elbow him quite sincerely. 

Hell, Mr. Jarvis’s wife made the room fill up more than enough just on her own - she was radiant and beautiful and stubborn and sweet and shockingly perfect for Mr. Jarvis, who had much to everyone's surprise and pleasure, refused to leave Mrs. Jarvis home alone on a day he quite huffily stuck his nose in the air and called “holiday.” 

The moment Anna stepped out of the car she threw her arms around Peggy in a crushing, sincere hug that had Peggy blinking wide into the beautiful plaited red hair. Hair just as fiery as the voice as she leaned back and scolded Peggy for not having been introduced to her earlier. 

It was the same scolding look she was giving Howard now as he rubbed his arm and managed to scrounge up a half-assed attempt at a name. 

“Agatha? Um, Angelica?” 

“Angie, close enough.” A waving hand and a teacup offered which Howard took gratefully, shooting a cautious look Anna’s way before lifting it to his mouth but she was all back to smiling, thanking Angie graciously as Martinelli offered both Jarvis’s cups of tea too. 

“Well then. Now that we’re all gathered here and waiting on--”

The door conveniently slammed open just then, a bang that made everyone jump except Ang, who managed to hand Daniel a cup of tea without the slightest splash or rumple in her skirt.

“Sorry I'm late, I was out searching a few spots in Brooklyn, just in case.” 

Steve was almost out of breath, which said a lot to how fast he must’a ran and Peggy placed a comforting hand on his arm, brown eyes as quiet and careful as they could be. 

“Anything?” 

Steve’s shiny blues didn't even meet hers. 

“No.” If there were medals given to war heroes for utter somberness, that would’ve won gold. “Nothing.” 

See, if he thought he’d been confused earlier, that was nothing on whatever this fuckery was supposed to be. Up until Steve’s dramatic entrance he’d just been trying to subtly study everyone ~~Jack~~ in the room and figure out what in hell he was missing but it wasn’t until that whole heartfelt exchange between Rogers and Carter just now that it started to sink in. 

It wasn’t what he was missing, it was who. 

“Searching for what? What exactly is going on?” Sousa’s question was just loud enough to cut through the hovering shimmer of tension that'd been coating the room from the minute Howard, Jarvis, Anna, Jack, Daniel, Angie, Peggy, and now Steve, had all tumbled in. 

“What exactly is going on?” Howard echoed incredulously and Steve didn't wait for him to give his long winded scientific explanation or overdramatized social complaint or whatever it was, he just strode three steps into the middle of the room, filled his chest with oxygen so stale it felt like the edge of an asthma attack, and tried his damn best to flip the switch into Captain America before Steve Rogers broke down goddamn crying. 

A soldier’s stance, a soldier’s oxygen, it was the only way he could say it, a soldier, because Bucky’s name would break on his tongue and then so would he. 

Who's strong and brave, here to sa--

“Sergeant Barnes has been taken by the Russians.”

 

The entire room was perfectly silent for a solid fifteen seconds, softly broken by the sound of Steve’s boots as he floated across the room, a transparent ghost spinning slow on one heel before sinking down on the edge of a couch, spine as straight as he thought he was three months ago. 

Daniel was frozen, Howard’s mustache was all scrunched up as he looked down at his fidgeting hands, Jarvis’s eyes were wide, although not half as wide as his wife’s, and Jack Thompson’s face was white as the ghost Steve felt like. 

Sousa was the first to gather himself enough to speak, which might’ve been because he was the least involved in the clusterfuck, or at least in the part of the clusterfuck surrounding Barnes. 

It wasn’t _rude_ persay, but no one else was gonna ask the damn question and it uh. Kinda needed to be asked. 

“How do you...know?” 

Peggy opened her mouth to answer, _it’s quite a long story_ , but Rogers beat her to it. 

“I just know,” he said quietly, staring down at the hands clasped between his knees. 

A chorusgirl in a trench coat with a pencil in his hand and rain pattering away at worn feet, it’d broken her heart then and it sure as hell broke her heart now. 

Adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to swallow and Peggy looked away, blinking the water back away from her eyelashes. Steve was suffocating and she wasn’t sure it’d ever been harder to watch someone in pain. 

But Daniel didn’t understand, didn’t see the tear ripping open Steve’s chest, all confusion and Good Cop as he shook his head once, leaning forward with both eyebrows crinkled up. 

“I don't wanna be the cynic here, but since Thompson’s not saying it, I will.” A pause, mouth open as he looked over at Jack, waiting for the jump in to save him the trouble but Jack wasn’t budging an inch from wide-eyed frozen mode. Daniel shifted, throat clearing as he turned for the other frozen soldier beside him,

“We all trust and respect you Steve, but. That doesn’t make any sense. It’s never that simple. You just _know_? What, a feeling in your gut and suddenly we've got a team together to go searching the ends of the earth? It could be anything, he could’ve had too much to drink, maybe met some girl--”

“Agent Sousa,” Peggy interrupted, because half the people in this room weren’t breathing and if Sousa continued on that tangent they’d have passed out soldiers instead of whitefaced ghost ones. 

She could handle a hell of a lot, but she wasn’t looking to add ‘soldiers more upset than they already were last night with their various qualms’ to the list.

“I understand any doubts you may have, but it really is that simple. That famous mission in ‘41 that launched Captain Rogers to fame, the liberation of 400 prisoners of war? Steve went on that mission because he was told Sergeant Barnes was dead. And he _knew_ \- just simply knew - that it wasn’t true. It’s that instinct that we’re talking about here.”

Sousa was still looking pretty skeptical, which was fair considering the circumstances, but he didn’t exactly know all the circumstances either. 

“I dunno, isn't that. Isn't this different? I mean it's New York, we're not at war. He could be anywhere.”

Howard’s mustache crooked sideways as he tipped his head in a _fair statement_ gesture and even Jarvis was nodding, but for Agent Peggy Carter, it was simple. Always had been.

She cleared her throat, red lips pursed, both arms crossing over her chest and brown curls bouncing as her head cocked deep to one side.

“Daniel. There's a lot of things in this world I doubt. Captain Rogers’ intuition is not one of them.” 

Steve finally looked up from the morose staredown with his knuckles, dark blues landing on Peggy and the little smile she gave him was nowhere near enough to reach the gravity of that look but there was nothing more she could say, no way she could possibly translate how much she meant in that statement. 

A moment of quiet while Sousa studied the two of them, the blonde knitted eyebrows and serious blues, Peggy’s offering warmth and sorrow in return, how goddamn pale Thompson was, the pure quiet of Howard Stark that spoke worlds in its own, not to mention everything that’d happened with Bucky at the office, and all the drama since...it really wasn’t too hard of a conclusion to come to. 

“Well. Okay. I mean Steve, if you’re sure then...count me in.” 

“I'm sure,” Steve reinforced quietly, arms crossing protectively over his chest as the Atlas shoulders leaned back into the couch. 

“Alright.” Peggy gave them both simple nods, stepping back to the front of the room while Sousa took a moment to glance around the rest of the crowd on the couches.

“Is everyone here already convinced? It was just me that didn’t see the immediate obviousness of an ex-sniper being snatched off the streets by the very people we’ve been chasing down?”

Some vague shrugs went up and Daniel made an incredulous sound that Angie quieted with a plate full of biscuits shoved inches from his nose. 

“I mean, I get where you’re comin’ from, Agent Sousa, but I trust USA more than anybody I know, besides maybe English. I mean, I originally came ‘cause Peggy did and we still haven’t had the damn chance to talk, but the minute I found out Brooklyn was involved--”

“Are the places confusing to anyone else?” Howard interrupted and Angie offered him the plate of biscuits to shut him up too. 

“So I...guess I get why you’re here, but. What does everyone else have to do with--”

“I’m more involved than you’d think,” Edwin Jarvis interrupted with his nose in the air and Howard all but mimicked the gesture, throwing up a shoulder and a hand. 

“Yeah, I know basically everything too.”

Daniel made a face at Stark and Jarvis made a face at Daniel and Peggy made a face at everyone because no, really, he didn’t. 

“How is it that someone who’s not even in the SSR--”

No one knew everything except for her, and that was honestly the majority of the goddamn problem. 

“Hey, there’s a lot of research to be done and as the lead scientist--”

“And the lead butler-spy--”

She was sitting on all these things but. She couldn’t do this on her own and she was the only one here who knew everything that’d happened but they needed to be able to work together which meant she.

“Okay, I appreciate both of your involvement, but this is the second in command of _my_ squad--”

“--you can’t be unfair to yourself, he _works_ with me and I didn’t even know--”

Fuck, she had to tell--

Dear god. 

“It seems like everyone is very involved in this but there’s no point in arguing over who knows more, doesn’t it matter most who saw him last?” 

“There’s gotta be something more concrete that connected this to the Russi--”

Peggy cleared her throat and just managed to lift her voice enough over the throng of vain arguing.

“I know this is--” she clapped her hands together a little overenthusiastically, room falling silent to her tight smile. “...a difficult situation.”

The expressions said more than enough and people were still shooting glares and tight, judgmental squints and defensive crossed arms and there was no way in hell they could hope to talk about this, let alone go on an actual rescue mission.

There was a lot of animosity in this room, and she’d never try to gather everyone up like this if it wasn’t this damn important. 

It was Bucky, there wasn’t much of anything more important than that. Which was the problem. They _all_ cared. In very different ways. 

Peggy sucked in a breath and steeled herself for the oncoming train. If there was any other choice. At least everyone was perfectly silent now, all eyes expectantly on her in the front of the room, leading this clusterfuck by the reins.

By god, difficult situation was an understatement. 

“But if this is going to work, if we’re going to find Sergeant Barnes, there are a couple of things that...need to be out in the open.” 

Eyebrows were starting to slowly raise and Peggy rolled in her lips, looking away from the expectant drilling eyes except the only place to look was at this _gaudy_ -ass painting over their heads, a rendition of Calm on a Fiery Steed and goddamn, if Napoleon could be composed in war, her soldiers could deal with a bit of drama, right?

“I know it's personal relations, but we’ll be needing different information from different people and there's really no other way to explain who he was last seen with and--”

Peggy paused, heart pounding as she slowly took a deep, steady breath. Well.

Here goes. 

“Barnes has a bastardized version of Rogers’ serum he has no idea about and no one who knew could tell him because Rogers kissed Thompson and Barnes joined the SSR to find out why only all along Thompson was interested in an entirely different colleague and Sousa was too busy helping Rogers figure out his shit and kissing me that no one had an idea how close Thompson and Barnes got behind everyone's back until Sousa saw them together and confessed his feelings for Thompson only an hour later Thompson confessed he slept with Barnes and now it appears tha--”

“You WHAT!?” 

The room fell perfectly silent for about seven seconds. 

Then all hell broke lose. She knew there'd be consequences to laying everything out in the open but. Whatever she was expecting, Steve Rogers screaming and fucking launching across the room to strangle Jack Thompson was not it. 

The wildly swinging fist came first and the next thing she knew Jack was on the ground and Steve’s hands were around his throat and both of the Jarvis’s had matching hands over their mouths and Howard's jaw was dropped and Angie dropped the tea kettle and Sousa’s eyes were so wide she was pretty sure he was gonna fall over only that meant Peggy was left to haul Steve off Jack all on her own. 

She did manage to stop the swinging fist and everyone was suddenly shouting over each other while she tried to hold a struggling supersoldier back until she finally planted a heel in Howard’s leg and got him to snap out of it enough to goddamn help her. 

He dragged Jarvis up too and there was so much noise and most of it was probably still Steve and there were so many tangled legs and shouts and fuck--

Steve was furious and broken hearted and spitting and trying to shove past them and she understood with full sympathy right up until one of his elbows landed in Peggy's side - thank god not the stitched-up bullet-hole side but still, unpleasant. Then she was at about 98% sympathy but thank god, between the three of them - four, there was Daniel - they managed to drag Rogers to his feet and shove him for the door.

Peggy put a hand on the back of his neck and lead him straight him into the hallway. He was thankfully just stunned enough to be deadweight pliant now, which meant she could haul him out of the room quite pointedly and slam the door shut solid and impenetrable behind them. 

The silence hit just as hard and loud as the slamming door and everyone left in the room slowly turned, five pairs of eyes landing right on the disheveled, vaguely bruising Jack Thompson who was still on the ground, holding one hand to his jaw where the mark of Steve’s fist was probably still stinging. 

“You slept with _Bucky?_ ” Stark finally broke the quiet and Jarvis hushed him loudly as Sousa sunk into the couch, glazed over and dazed. Anna was still sitting on the couch, eyes wide and looking very surprised and very surprisingly quiet. 

Angie plopped down next to her, shaking her head once, curls bouncing as she replayed the last day and half in her head, clear as day now. Pursed lipstick and a patting hand as Angie finally leaned over to offer Mrs. Jarvis,

“I _knew_ Carter didn't work at the phone company.” 

 

The room lasted just a few minutes of quiet comments before Anna Jarvis suggested they at least try to find a way to start looking for Barnes, which finally kicked everyone into gear.

Sousa helped pick up the dropped tea set, Thompson all but crawled back onto the couch and was currently squeezing the life out of a pillow while Jarvis studied him with squinted eyes from across the room and Howard ran ideas past Angie until they jumped on an idea that lead to Stark scrounging up a giant map of Manhattan he hung up at the front of the room. 

Angie was marking little symbols for known landmarks - the Griffith, the New York Bell Phone Company that she quite clearly had labeled as SSR now that she'd connected the dots that SSR Agents Sousa and Thompson were Peggy’s and Steve’s coworkers, meaning they were all totally SSR which sounded fancy and intimidating and dangerous and actually rather enticing--

The door swung open and Angie nearly dropped the marker, chit chat falling silent again as Peggy stepped in first, Steve a foot behind and deadly silent as he stalked over to the furthest couch, glaring fucking daggers at Jack the entire time. 

Peggy cleared her throat and Angie held out the marker, which Peggy took gratefully with a little smile and nod, composing herself just a bit before turning back to the expectant faces. 

“Now that we are reconvening after that--” a manicured hand swished a disheveled curl back in place, “...very dramatic episode.”

A snort from someone in the audience and yes, that was an understatement, but Bucky was still, yknow, missing, and she’d like to remedy that as soon as physically possible so she was going to ignore the peanut gallery and keep this as professional as damn possible. 

“Jack was the last one to see James, and he's disappeared since. However, based off both Rogers’ gut and the unexplainable behavior increasing lately, it's our guess that he didn't in fact run, but was taken in his...weakened state.”

There really was no better way to put that but Steve bristled regardless, fists curling as this low growl rumble in his throat and Jack groaned painfully, sliding further down against the couch to bury his face in a pillow. 

Peggy paused, looking him over with a touch of sympathy. Jack had made some pretty bad ass decisions, and he was a dick, so he kinda deserved that one. But the one person she'd never want to be on the Death List for was Steve Rogers and if that alone wasn't bad enough, this was still _Bucky_ they were talking about. 

Honestly? Yikes. 

But before they could spiral down into a deeper level of Hell Peggy turned promptly to the map, uncapping the marker to draw a careful circle,

“--so that has Barnes’ last known location here.” She tapped it once with her finger, appreciating the moment of not having to look at everyone's faces. 

Could still hear though, and the warning bells in that voice were unmistakable. 

“You had sex at a _bar_ ,” Steve said slowly, head swiveling to pin solid blue to steel and Peggy was drawing a line from the bar to Steve and Bucky's apartment, busy contemplating where he could be picked up...

“In the alley behind, actually,” she corrected absently, leaning a little closer to squint at a road and that's when her words caught up to her ears. 

“In a--” The sudden halt in Steve’s words had her spinning back around just in time to watch the kettle boil over as pale shot to red. 

“Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME--”

They were at least a little better prepared this time. Steve lept across the room and Howard and Jarvis and Sousa all grabbed those broad blue shoulders to pull him back, chest heaving and fists clenched so fucking pissed he couldn’t see straight. 

Thompson uncurled cautiously from his spot on the couch, nervous swallow as pale blue flitted over the raging super soldier and sounded even smaller than he looked, 

“Maybe I really shouldn't be here.” 

“Yeah you REALLY FUCKING SHOULDN’T.” 

Jack cringed and the only reason Steve wasn’t ripping himself out of the boys’ hold was because he’d probably break some hands if he did and he was mad but he definitely wasn’t _that_ blind. 

He sure felt blind though, fucking _blindsided_ like he’d been hit with a fucking train, on a mountain, 5000 feet up in the snow. 

Carter looked about ready to haul him off by the ear again but she didn’t _get it_ , this was Bucky and he’d had s--s--

With _Thompson_ , **_behind an alley_** \--

“Steve! We need all hands on deck if we're going to save him. You _know_ that. Jack not only has the skill required for this mission, he has the connections and personal information about Barnes we need. Think of James for single moment, would you?” 

The British accent was surprisingly sharp, but _believe him_ , he was fucking thinking of Bucky, he couldn’t stop thinking of Bucky, with _Jack_ , who they most absolutely definitely did not need. Connections and personal information, what the fuck did that mean?

What could he possibly have Steve doesn't -- 

Except that they had sex. 

That Bucky had sex with Jack Thompson, Bucky Barnes his best friend in the world had slept with a man, a man that wasn’t Steve, a man that Steve knew better than anyone was a complete dick, Bucky had been with _him_ and Steve was lightheaded. 

“I think I'm gonna be sick,” he offered weakly, just in time for the room to start to tip and thankfully there were already three pairs of hands on his shoulders and suddenly two small ones planted on his chest, a flash of red as Mrs. Jarvis, who he’d barely even had the chance to meet was suddenly helping Howard and Jarvis and Sousa haul him out of the room, again, twin pairs of heels clacking after as the door slammed shut and an entire fucking entourage dragged him for the closest bathroom. 

Steve wondered distantly what Dr. Erskine would think of a super soldier’s perfect cells making him puke up everything he’d eaten for the past two days because he couldn’t fucking stomach three goddamn words,

Bucky and Jack. 

 

Keeping up with the rushing chaos was pretty tough on one leg, he was only gonna get in the way so he hung back as soon as Steve was ushered out, which left him quite hyper aware that the close of the door left him all alone with the very cause of it, Agent Jack Thompson. 

Who he’d thought he had an idea about, but turned out everything he’d been thinking had a _very_ different underlying motive than he’d been trying to guess. 

The room fell silent and Jack went with it, collapsing on the couch to lay quietly and stare up at the ceiling, the same pillow clutched to his chest, tie all rumpled and perfect slick blonde hair starting to slowly dislodge. 

Sousa studied him from the door, the decorated vet who was an asshole to Peggy but softened the minute things got real, the agent who worked so damn hard to make it to the top only to be shut down by a word from the Chief. The friend who he’d thought he at least had in his corner, in some weird twisted way, but apparently all this time, knew absolutely nothing about. 

“Jeez Jack.” Daniel shook his head once, still barely able to damn grasp what a mess this had become. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn't.” That sounded like tears behind the steel blue. Tears that of course turned bitter the second his voice cracked. “Or maybe I was and maybe that's the goddamn problem.”

Daniel sighed, but the next thing he knew he was crossing the room and lowering carefully to the rug beside Thompson’s pity couch. 

Yeah, he fucked up. But Daniel had been to war, they all had. It wasn't like some soldiers hadn't...gotten up to things sometimes. People had been dying, people were getting shot in the face and blown to pieces and shoved into death camps. It kinda put everything in perspective. 

So did losing a leg. 

It could've been that or maybe it was his stupid habit of blushing every time Jack so much as shot him a glance of that cocky smile, but as big of a deal as this was, it wasn't the end of the goddamn world and either way, Thompson was still his coworker. 

One of his only coworkers who gave him the time of day. The only man he'd ever met that didn't dance around his missing leg like he was some delicate freak and maybe he'd jumped the gun when he came confessing to Peggy because it turned out he didn't know half as much about Jack as he thought, but that didn't change the way his heart beat a little faster every time he was around. 

Peggy’s little schpeel had revealed. A lot, but everyone's jaw dropped silence hadn't let anything sink in - Rogers kissed Thompson, Bucky has the fucking _serum_ , Jack was into someone at the office and also apparently now knew that Sousa had feeling for him, if the sudden shocking announcement on Barnes and Thompson hadn't completely overshadowed it. 

Either way, once they figured that out they had the entire rest of everything else to address and fuck it, Jack looked like he was falling apart when Sousa knew he'd never been anything but lost hurt and trying so hard in the first place. 

Daniel reached up and took Jack’s hand. 

It didn't surprise him that Thompson flinched violently away but this wasn't even about that, Jack needed some goddamn physical support and Sousa stubbornly reached over and took his hand again. 

The protest didn't come that time. Instead Jack’s pretty blues started to swim and the cocky strong voice crumbled down with all those asshole-built walls, nothing but a broken terrified whisper. 

“What's wrong with me? What's wrong--”

“Nothing,” Sousa promised and maybe he was a little biased as a squeezed Thompson’s rough calluses hand, but he meant it. “Nothing’s wrong with you Jack. Liking fellas doesn't make you a terrible person.”

The tug back of his hand this time was too quick to stop, then Jack was sniffling and rolling away from him, facing the back of the couch as he huffed a dry, hurt laugh. 

“Yeah, right. My dad would be so fucking proud.”

Wow. There was a lot of vicious past in that statement. He wanted to help, but there were some things that he was pretty sure he wasn't gonna touch with a ten foot pole. 

Conversation reroute time. 

“Well…are you. Y’know.” He tried not to cringe as he said it but it wasn't like he ever talked about any of this out loud and it was more instinct than anything to keep it hushed. “--homosexual?”

“I just had sex with a man,” Jack shot back bitterly. 

“Yeah but. Didn't you sleep with your girlfriends too?” He was trying to angle this in a direction that made sense and didn't just have everyone blowing up with emotions all over the place but he got it, it wasn't like talking about all this was easy. 

“Yeah.” A quiet sniffle and Sousa watched as Jack’s broad shoulders curled in a little more. “And it was. I mean it was fine. Which is why it doesn't--” 

“Why it doesn't make any sense that sleeping with Barnes was...good too?”

They both heard the implied _Better_ but Daniel was looking for answers, to figure this out not call Jack out on anything. 

A tip back to centered and Jack threw a hand up at the ceiling, still carefully angled away enough that Daniel couldn't see his face. 

“Exactly.”

((Cough cough _BI_ cough cough _pan_ cough _this is Bucky Barnes obviously he's better_ cough _sexuality is a spectrum_ or cough cough pretty sure they weren't really embracing bisexuality in 1945 but I needed a moment to shout))

The silence settled over them for a bit, parced by the occasional sniffle as Daniel stared down st his hands and tried to figure out a damn thing to say. 

His leg was starting to ache and he didn't wanna break the silence or the potentiality for eye contact but he had to shift his weight, re-situating on the floor to put his back against the couch and the goddamn second he did Thompson’s mouth shot open. 

“Did you know I was drafted?” 

Daniel froze halfway into his new spot, looking wide-eyed over his shoulder to search the steel blue only Jack’s eyes were closed, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed tightly and forcibly unclenched the fists at his side. 

“I was nineteen, when Pearl Harbor was attacked and my parents drove me to the nearest enlistment center the goddamn minute it was announced the US was joining the war.” A shaky hand wiped at his face and Daniel slowly lowered himself to prop against the couch, staring wide eyed at the empty room and listening to the erratic breathing of the breaking soldier boy behind him. 

“I went inside and I hid in the bathroom for as long as I figured the process would take but I was just so scared, I was a kid and in my second year of college, I didn't wanna lose my life and my friends and everything just because my parents wanted to be able to say their fucking son signed up first.

“When I came back out I told them I'd enlisted and they'd be sending a letter with details and they were more damn proud of me in that moment than they'd ever been and I hated them for it, I hated myself for it. But of course the letter never came. We waited and waited and the fucking day I turned twenty my Dad finally brought me a letter, only if didn't say anything about my pretend enlistment it said I was. D-drafted and I'd never seen him so m-mad--”

A shaky inhale and Daniel closed his eyes, looking down at his knees, even though only one of them was a knee at all and wondered how damn lucky he was to have the family he did. 

God, Thompson was just a kid. He was turning twenty five soon, only two and a half years younger than Daniel but the difference between signing up at nineteen and twenty-two was bigger than that. 

“Spent my whole life tryin’ to live up to everything my dad wanted me to be but I was just never good enough and when they finally shipped me off with that fucking serial number that started with a 3 they were _glad_ to see me go. I think they'd’ve been perfectly fine if I died over there, so long as I won a medal doin’ it.” 

For as cocky as Thompson was, Sousa’d always wondered why he didn't brag about his Medal of Honor. Well. Looked like there was a lot more to the story than he'd thought. 

“I t-tried so hard to be a good soldier, to make up for it and of course I shipped out to the first American attack on Jap soil and then they just. Kept shipping me out and I never stopped, I never gave up but every time I almost died I'd just fucking wonder if I should've let that bullet take me because then maybe I could make my family proud for fucking once. 

“Then there was. There was this soldier in my squad, he. He slept with an officer, our commander and when the other commander found out the commander got blue carded so fast we didn't even get to say goodbye and he just. Sent the soldier into enemy fire on this impossible mission and I d-don't know if it was to set an example or not but I was so fucking terrified because it was the same soldier who'd. Who'd slammed me up against a tree with a hand down my pants just the week before and I was so scared, I was s-so _scared_ \--”

Sousa didn't turn around at the quiet noise, at Jack's hands covering his face because he had no idea what to say, what he could possibly do and he'd figured Thompson had a reason for being a dick, for following orders so tight-lipped, trying so fucking hard to climb the ladder and be perfect and prove himself and put everyone else around him down to try to stay ahead and he'd _known_ he was struggling, struggling with fixing himself but he couldn't fix his sexuality, he couldn't change the way he felt or the way he saw the world or the things he'd done and. 

Wow. 

“T-then I finally got my fucking medal but I didn't deserve it, I killed innocent people and I _didn't deserve it._ I was on watch and i dozed off and the second I woke I saw Japs in our camp and one of them was bending down over my officer, could slit his throat second and I killed him, I killed all of them and then when I was. Pulling my knife out of the last one that's when I saw the wh. White f-flag. I buried it, I buried it and I didn't tell anyone and they gave me a fucking _medal_ and my parents sat in the front row at the ceremony and I wanted to be _sick._ ”

The only thing Daniel ever wanted was for his friends to be safe and a job done right and he’d spent the last few months just trying to pick himself up after the war, trying to rebuild a stable life when he was still getting used to navigating crutches, to being handicapped. To being one of the soldiers who walked away with permanent scars. 

He knew Jack was trying to pick himself up after the war too, everyone was, there was so much blood spilt and so many explanations for it all and the world was a goddamn different place after you’d blown off someone’s head who had the same damn bones as the brother at your side. 

But fuck, he’d never thought some of the worst scars from the war would be impossible to see. 

Steve may have cracked Jack open with that kiss, but it was him Thompson was spilling, breaking apart to. 

Daniel just sat there in quiet stupor and listened to Jack fall apart. 

“All I ever wanted to b-be. Was. The hero. I just wanted to be good enough and make up for all my stupid mistakes. But I can't, I can’t do anything right, I couldn't even get a damn job after the war, my dad had to pull strings to get me a position as an agent then I even fuck that up and I just couldn't handle Rogers then he kissed me and I was so horrified of myself and--”

The sudden frustrated pause made Daniel peer over his shoulder, check Jack’s face. Pretty, cocky easy was all twisted up with bitter recognition of what he’d done, welcoming his own form of self destruction. 

“--and now I’ve slept with his best friend, one of my only friends, and look how fuckin’ far it’s gotten me.”

A steady inhale, exhale and Daniel swiveled a bit, propping one elbow up on the couch but Jack just shot him this distrustful, teary look down his nose, bruised jaw. 

Still, after all of that, Jack was pushing him away. 

It was heartbreaking, how easy he spilled tragedy only to hate Sousa for softening because of it. Was there a single person in his life who’d ever fucking hugged him and told him it wasn’t his fault? 

Here was a boy who couldn’t comprehend what he wanted because nothing had ever been in his control and he had no idea how to ask for it because he was stuck in this indestructible loop of hiding from himself and the world and hating both for it. 

“Jack,” Daniel started and Thompson was brushing at his cheeks and shaking his head before he got out another damn word. 

“Don’t,” he croaked and Sousa wasn’t good at many things, but he could be a good friend. He shifted a touch closer, reaching for Thompson’s untouchable hand again. 

“Jack, c’mon. This will pass, it’s not--”

“It’s not like what?” He bit and Sousa could cry for how damn hurt the steel blues were under the attempted glare. “Like I fucked up so badly I lost everything I had to lose? My respect, my job, my career, my sorry excuse for friends, my life, my future, literally _everything_?”

The skin of Jack’s palm was damp from wiping his face but he didn’t care, he’d squeeze it as hard as it fucking took until Thompson got the message. The steel blue looked betrayed as Daniel held his gaze, held his damn hand, and gave Jack the only thing he could. 

“Not everything.” 

 

He had no idea what Thompson would say to that, Daniel declaring he was still at Jack’s side despite all the shitstorm, and apparently he’d never get to know because that happened to be the exact moment the door swung back open. 

The retreat was more for Jack and for Steve than it was for him, but Daniel drew his hand away before anyone could see, staying by Thompson’s side from his perch on the floor while the rest of the crew filed back in. 

Peggy came through first, raising an eyebrow at him that Daniel shook his head at, he didn’t know what she was thinking but she was probably wrong. The only thing he wanted to be was a damn friend, to be kind enough to be there for someone who didn’t have anyone else. 

“Sous,” the voice behind him gruffed quietly and Daniel turned again, to see Jack sitting up and tipping his head for the open spot on the couch beside him. 

His legs were a little shaky under him as he pushed up so Jack took his elbow and for once Daniel didn’t fuss about it, let himself be lifted to the couch while everyone else quietly took seats too. 

Steve came into the room last, pale and a little shaky, absolutely refusing to look their direction but better that then more bruises paid for by knuckles that only punched out because they couldn’t punch in.

“Now, for our third attempt,” Peggy stood up at the front of the room, as powerful and shiny as she’d ever been, dark brown eyes meeting every one of theirs and lilting accent impossible to refuse. They were all here, they were all willing, and they were all ready. 

“We need a battle plan. In this room we have some of the greatest minds, most incredible soldiers, scientists, spies, most strategic and knowledgeable about this particular subject in the entire world. 

“And we're going to save Bucky Barnes.” 

 

~*~*~

 

It was strangely relieving to take her armful of secret Project Italy files and spread them out on Stark’s dining room table, flipping open evidence and documents and theories she’d been tucking away for way too long. 

Everyone was panning through notes, everything from what Stark discovered through science to the evidence she’d kicked out of ratty men in warehouses. The room was surprisingly quiet and Angie just kept refilling cups of tea, a sort of assembly line as soldiers and scientists and agents all filed through the same material, looking for anything she hadn’t seen and catching up everything she hadn’t included in the little verbal report that had caused that hour’s worth of ridiculous drama. 

On the bright side, everyone was so caught up on Jack and Bucky sleeping together, no one had brought up how she’d kissed Sousa or how Sousa felt about Jack or even that Rogers and Thompson kissed. 

One showboat at a time. 

“And what’s this?” Stark was the first to reach the end of the assembly line of info, although to be fair he did already know the most of everyone. Which was probably why he looked quite offended by the prospect of there being a piece of evidence he didn’t recognize. 

“I think it’s a recording of Barnes?” Peggy handed the half-made ice pack to Anna, who finished wrapping it up for Jack’s jaw. “Steve?”

“Yeah, he. He got triggered by a weapon in the office and I managed to interrogate him a bit while he was freaking out. None of it really made sense, though, it sounded basically like jibberish.” 

She stood at Steve’s elbow while he picked up the recorder, flipping it on and waiting for everyone to set down their files before pressing play and sliding the little black device to the center of the table. 

_“I need you to tell me about the project in Russia. Why is Hydra sending you there?”_ Steve’s voice crackled into the room, surprisingly steady and maybe it was that juxtaposition or just the idea that he might have been taken by the Russians, but the minute Bucky’s voice came over the line the entire room ran cold. 

_“T-Train. They train, the spiders. It’s a red room and they train the spiders. You’ll be better than the ballerinas…”_ His voice went strained and high and Steve’s fists curled visibly, head dipping as his eyes closed in pain. 

_“The secret weapon’s almost ready to be shipped.”_

_“What secret weapon? Bucky, what secret weapon?”_

The recorder crackled, shuffling and the scrape, a quiet curse and everyone in the room was perfectly silent as a pitiful hurt sound echoed loud enough to make Steve still cringe.

 _“Go get me a glass of water,”_ the tape commanded and Thompson’s _”Why?”_ was almost inaudible in comparison. 

_“GO!”_ There was a slam on the other end of the tape and wow, it was palpably awkward in this room. 

Peggy wasn’t looking at the boys, too busy writing down the keywords Barnes had said so far, trying to make connections but even she looked up when the next words broke over the recorder.

_“It’s me, it’s Steve, Buck. Buck, you’re safe, I’ve got yo--”_

The voice suddenly cut as Steve scooped up the recorder, slamming it right back off and letting the silence echo for a moment as everyone stared at the table and didn’t dare look at each other. 

“That’s all there is. The rest was just trying to pull him out of it.” A quiet clatter as the recorder tossed back down, followed up immediately by Peggy’s pages of notes. She didn’t have time to weep over how broken either of her boys sounded on that tape, not if she wanted the other one back.

“So it looks like all we’ve got to go from are some kind of red room, something about spiders, ballerinas, and a secret weapon. Has anybody got any idea what any of that means?”

“Ballerina? I met this _lovely_ ballerina a month or so ago…”

“Howard, your conquests have absolutely _nothing_ to do with our search for Barnes, thank you.” Peggy rolled her eyes and started writing down the Russian words for spiders, red, seeing if she could think of any analogue connections. 

Of course, Stark just kept rambling. 

“She had the strangest name...Overtree?” 

“Howard.”

“Maybe Upbush? No, no. It did start with a U though…”

“Alright, does anyone have ideas about what a red room might mean? Maybe a darkroom of sorts, for photography?”

“I mean, we haven’t found anything else that points to anything about photography, I really don’t know--”

“Underwood!” Howard suddenly shouted, pointing a finger at the wide eyes that originally turned to him in annoyance but were now turning into furrowed brows. “Yep, her name was Underwood. Peggy, you were _there_ the night we went out for dinner!”

“Dottie Underwood’s a ballerina?” Steve asked incredulously and Peggy’s curls bounced as her head whipped around to look at him now. 

“What? No, absolutely not. Dottie’s from Ohio,” Peggy corrected. 

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Anna Jarvis pointed out and Carter squinched up her nose, head tipping to the side. 

“I think they might be, actually.” 

“Dottie Underwood?” Thompson asked slowly, finally, the first word he’d said since he’d offered to leave an hour ago. Everyone went quiet and turned to him, the knit eyebrows and confused blues. “The blonde?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. But how the hell do you know her?” Angie had finally put away the kettle and was now standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a very judgemental look being shot Jack’s way. 

“She found me at a bar,” he replied slowly and Steve hissed - actually hissed - and Jack quickly backpedaled, two hands up as he amended. “A different bar than that one, jeez.”

“That’s weird, that she found you of all people at a bar.” And that she knew Howard too? And she’d seen her talking to Bucky more than once. That didn’t sound like a coincidence. 

“Yeah, we talked for awhile.” Thompson’s mouth twisted up to the side, cautiously picking up Peggy’s notepad and looking over the notes she’d jotted down. “Except she told me she was from California.” 

“That’s….odd.”

“Peggy, isn’t she your next door neighbor?” Steve asked, sounding rather shaken himself and _fuck_ , he knew her too, hadn’t he ended up in her room trying to sneak out of Peggy’s?

“Yes, as a matter of fact, she is.” It kinda hit her halfway through her reply and with that, Peggy was already packing her purse right back up. “Angie, you wanna come with me?” 

“‘Course, English.” 

“You boys decipher the rest of that, we’ll follow up on the ballerina. Somebody figure out what the hell Red Room means, because a location’s the most important thing we need right now. And by god,” She paused at the door, making sure all those big sad blue eyes were on her when she gave them a very pointed look and said as clear as she damn could, “--don’t fight over him while I’m gone.”

 

~*~ 

 

She supposed breaking into Dottie’s room with a bobbypin could’ve been a little more subtle, and based on the look Angie gave her there was a lot she was gonna be explaining later, but for now Martinelli was being so wonderfully patient and unpressing, and Peggy really did plan on explaining everything as soon as this wild international manhunt ended with everyone home and safe. 

“Ready?”

“You bet,” Angie replied and that wasn’t the answer she normally got from fellow soldiers, but to be fair, this was a very different situation. So she sucked in a breath and shouldered open the door. 

Her gun went up and Angie made a quiet little gasp behind her, which could’ve either been from the fact that she had a gun stored in her garter harness or maybe just the fact that she had a gun, but either way it didn’t matter much, because Dottie most definitely was not in her apartment. 

In fact, not a single thing was in Dottie’s apartment. 

The entire apartment was cleared out. 

The _entire_ apartment. Drawers, closets, under the bed. 

However, on the bed - or specifically, the bedposts - there were the strangest marks, raw wood all marked up. She’d never seen anything like it, the circular cuts dug into the dark. 

“What in the world is Dot up to?” Angie asked, awed as she touched soft fingertips to the marks and Peggy shook her head once, taking survey of the room one more time. 

“You know, I really don’t think that’s her name.”

 

~*~ 

 

“Wait, wait. Sousa, don’t you already have a location you figured out? From those shipping crates? Is there any way that could fit into all of this?” Thompson spread out an arm to indicate the maps and files and ten thousand notes and anagrams they were trying to work into anything related to spiders or the color red. 

“The Russian base coordinates? I mean...Russia could mean red, right? At least it’s the color of the flag, and--”

“And that’s enough of a damn start for me,” Steve interrupted, grabbing an armful of papers and sliding them back into a pile to stuff into the closest file. “We’ve lost too much time already. I vote as soon as Peg gets back, we hit the road.” 

“I’m fine with that,” Sousa agreed, grabbing a file and starting after Steve, right up until he realized he was headed out of the room. “Wait, where are you--”

“I’ve gotta make a call.” File handed to Howard and Steve paused at the doorway, sucking in a breath and still actively avoiding looking at any part of the room that had Jack Thompson in it. “Project this big? I’m not going in without backup. Backup I can trust.” 

He whipped around the corner and Stark made a _yikes_ face and Jack sunk down into the closest chair and started quietly, pissily folding maps back up and Sousa sighed, sitting down next to him while Jarvis hurried after Rogers to make sure he found the right phone he might need. 

For a phone call like this though, he needed courage even more than the long distance phone. 

 

“Hello? Timothy Dugan speaking.”

“Dugan? It’s Steve Rogers.”

“CAP! Aw man, it’s so good to hear from you! I’ve actually got Jones here with me, he came up to DC to visit HU, see some of his college pals and figured he’d stop by. We were just making a bet to see how long it’d be before you boys called to make Christmas plans. Although we figured Mrs. Rogers would be the one calling, Bucky’s always been the plan-maker when it comes to holidays, no matter what that USO song says-- 

“Tim--”

“Jones just said he doesn’t believe me that it’s you on the phone, Bucky’s gotta be holding you by your ear or somethin--”

“Tim, I’m not calling about Christmas,” Steve finally managed to interrupt and Dugan fell so instantly quiet Steve checked the line to make sure it didn’t accidentally hang up. Nope, crackling still there. Dugan was still there, and Jones, but Steve wasn’t sure he could feel his own heart beating anymore. 

“...I’m calling about Bucky.” 

“Is...is he alright, Cap? You don’t sound too good.” 

“He’s. No, he’s not alright. How do you boys feel about spending Christmas break in Russia?” 

Christmas in Russia.

If Bucky were here, he’d make the joke, elbow Steve with that shit of a grin he always wore - _well, at least we know we’re definitely getting snow._

But Bucky wasn’t here, no one was here to make the joke and it was so cold outside Steve couldn’t breathe. 

God, he hoped wherever Bucky was, he was warm. 

 

~*~*~

 

It was snowing when the plane touched down. 

They picked up the snow jeep in one of the hangars and drove straight to the Commandos’ plane, which was flying in right after theirs. 

Last Christmas, they’d all been in the army. God, it’d been bitter cold, even colder than this, but they’d set up a hell of a fire and sat dangerously close to it and pretended not to freeze.

The snow was gathering on dark eyelashes and Monty kept making snowballs and crushing them between his gloves, a quiet sort of peace between them as they all stared at the flames and tried not to miss roasting chestnuts and marshmallows. 

And of course, the moment the crickets took a pause and the eerie quiet got to be just a little too heavy, their resident star lit up just bright enough to pull them all out of the shadows. 

“Twas the night before Christmas,” Bucky started into the silence and they were all cracking up in bursts of frozen air before a single heart could drop. 

“--when all through the fields,” he continued loudly over the laughter, “Not a creature was stirring, not one little meal.” 

Morita snorted, poking Dugan in the side with their empty roasting sticks without so much as a squirrel to cook up. 

“Wet socks were hung over the fire with care, in hopes that the warmth soon would be there.” Everyone was starting to snicker as they realized Bucky wasn't stopping anytime soon, and not only was reciting everyone’s father’s Christmas poem but was changing the damn words to fit their war’s Christmas. 

“The soldiers were nestled all snug in their beds,” a tip to side to throw an arm around Steve’s shoulders, tug him in and rub up and down, all warm and happy as Steve tried not to burrow closer, “--while visions of loved ones danced in their heads.”

The laughs slowly faded into crooked smiles, nostalgia sinking some lower than others as it sunk in, again, another Christmas without home. Left out in the cold to wonder if their families were warm, happy, safe, and Steve’s stomach churned because he didn’t have a single damn thing to be sorrowful for. 

His entire family was right here. 

“With Sarge in his blues, and a shield for our Cap…”

A little smile down at him and Steve blinked up from his spot on Bucky’s collarbone, the pretty frozen droplets dangling on Buck’s long lashes, the light blue to the lips that were damn smiling anyways. 

“...all settled their brains for a long winter’s nap.”

The groans of just how good that sounded echoed around the fire and Bucky smiled, jostling Steve a little closer as his eyes lit up, sing-song voice echoing against the hills,

“When out on the battlefield there arose such a clatter, the snoozer on watch sprang up to see what was the matter!” The animated melody had everybody giggling and Steve smiled fondly, closing a glove around the lapel of Bucky’s coat as he pressed a little harder to the cold slick of Bucky’s coat and the promised warmth underneath. 

“Away to the hilltop he flies like a flash, peer around the tree, gun up’n sights on the clash--” One glove burst up in the air, fingers pulling into a rifle over the top of Steve’s head, peering around an invisible tree with his other arm tucked safe around Steve’s ribs. 

“And what does he see in the new-fallen snow, when he suspected a thousand enemy armies below?” Crystal flashed down to him again, smile lighting up that whole pretty face and Steve blinked drowsily, bones remembering a dozen other times Bucky had recited this poem as they curled up in as many blankets as they owned and with no space between the like this, he was just about as warm. 

“Instead, to tired wondering eyes should appear, but a flying white flag, pure as the snow was clear.”

His entire family was here tonight, everything he had was here and with Buck’s arm around him, Steve never wanted to move again. 

“With a tattered old shirt, waving so sure without bend, he knew in a moment it must mean the end.”

He’d fallen asleep in this same position so many damn times in his life he couldn’t help but start to drift now, slipping deeper into warmth, comfort with every rise and fall of that familiar voice. 

“More rapid than eagles his fellow soldiers came, and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!” A little jostled to his shoulder and Steve grumbled, forcing himself to blink his eyes back open what small bit they could as Bucky proudly sang out the next line, 

"Now Dugan! Now, Jones! Now, Dernier and Monty! On, Morita! On, Rogers! On--” Bucky paused, tipping his head to the side before cursing quietly and interrupting his sing-song to say flatly, “--we don’t have a big enough squad for this.” 

Everyone cracked up, including Steve, giggling high on drowsiness into Bucky’s padded collarbone and Buck just sang the rest over the tops of their laughs,

“To the top of the hill! To the top of the wall!” Fingers squeezing him one last time and Steve smiled into the dark blue peacoat, thinking maybe Christmas without a house wasn’t so bad when he still had his home right here. “Now dash away! Go on home! Dash away all!"

 

And now, Steve was standing in the snow waiting for the Commandos to climb off their plane and wondering why the hell they’d let themselves dash so far, how in the world dashing home had made him lose the only home he’d ever had.

~*~*~

 

They took one of the cargo jeeps, a CCKW that fit three in the front, a cargo covered back with enough wooden crates to count as benches. Stark insisted on driving and Jarvis climbed into the middle, which left either Sous or Thompson to join Peggy and Steve in the back. 

Sousa took one look at Rogers’ face and instantly climbed in the back, where Steve was pointedly trying not pay attention, two files open across his lap and the cargo flap pulled back so his peripherals couldn’t help but catch the movement as Thompson swung dramatically into shotgun, practically bouncing on the shitty seat. 

He instantly turned to give Howard shit for something and Steve blinked twice, looking back down at the files in his lap.

Jack was perfectly fine. Steve’s brain hadn’t let him stop thinking from the minute this thing had started but he’d been able to distract himself at least somewhat by pouring over Peggy’s notes, Howard’s tight handwriting on the off chance he might find something important but Jack was perfectly fine and the fucking second it crossed his mind, there was no going back. 

Steve shook his head once, tried to physically dislodge the thought but fuck, there was no way he could let go of that. 

Or, worse. 

It could be the only thing he could fucking think about the entire time it took for Sous and Peg to climb in, get settled, for the jeep to start and rumble off in the direction of where they were picking up the Commandos. 

Yeah, he couldn’t read a single fucking word, how would he be able to focus on a fucking mission--

Okay, he had to find out, right now, or it was going to physically eat him alive. 

Daniel was sitting up closest to the cockpit, with Peggy between them and with the grumble of the engine and the rickety freezing terrain, he might as fucking well lean over and ask it now before this shitstorm could get any worse. 

“Peggy?” She leaned right back, catching the hush in his voice or maybe the look on his face but either way now she was close, blinking big brown eyes up at him from under the slicked back ponytail that made her look...really beautiful, somehow. 

Steve shook his head once and tried not to think about what the fuck he was asking but he _couldn’t stop wondering_ \--

“...how much do you know about. Um. About Bucky and Jack?”

“Enough,” she said and by god, she could be a different woman without the soft curls surrounding her face. Straight, long hair pulled back and up and it made her cheekbones look so sharp, her eyes so sharp as she studied him and Steve had no idea what the fuck _his_ face looked like right now but he might as well fucking. Ask. 

“Do you know if--” Sucked in a breath and looked down at his hands. God how the fuck did he say that out loud? How was he even thinking that, how--

“Jack’s fine, he doesn’t seem to be um. Is Bucky...fine too?” The words came out all rushed and one angled eyebrow arched up. 

“He...it was pretty clear they were both...willing participants,” she said slowly and Steve shook his head once, stumbling all over himself again. 

“No, I. Do you know which one of them. Was Bucky the one who…” It just physically died in his mouth and Steve rolled his hand helplessly, he really didn’t have any other way to fucking say it, couldn’t she just see his desperation and get the fucking gest--

“ _Oh_.” Her eyes went wide, instantly, pursed red mouth dropping open a tad. “Bucky was the catcher, yes.”

The sharp inhale nearly caught in his throat and his eyes squeezed shut so tight and fast for a second he had no idea why everything went black except he couldn’t fucking handle that, couldn’t handle any of this--

“It sounded like he might’ve been the instigator as wel--” she started to continue and Steve cut her off as fucking fast as he could. 

“Thank you, Peggy,” he muttered, prying his eyes back open to stare lifelessly at the files in his lap. 

He’d just fucking bury himself in the words, it’d be fine, scoop up a sheet and fuck, his hands were shaking and he was pushing away the unimaginable he just. 

Bucky was okay. Bucky was okay, they were gonna find him and Bucky was okay. 

That’s all that fucking counted. 

 

Somewhere between the ninth and ninetieth times he’d read these goddamn notes, the jeep rumbled to a stop and Peggy didn’t bother asking if he wanted to come with, she just stepped around him and went to go get the boys herself. 

Daniel went with her, and Steve had absolutely no idea why but that was fine, he was busy reading anyways, in the back of this cargo truck by himself. 

Fuck, it was cold. 

And it was really, really quiet. 

It was silent in here by himself and he’d never liked the quiet but here he was, a piece of canvas to separate him from the rest of the world while his toes started to go numb and every other part of his body slowly drifted through white until it was fading, fading, and he couldn’t see a damn thing anymore--

The hand on his shoulder made him jump, one second he was falling through snow and the next there was the world, grounding heavy and sudden down the entire length of his collarbone, spine.

“Hey, Cap.”

“Dugan,” he said and it wasn’t broken or anything, it wasn’t anything. He pushed against the crate to stand and the hand on his shoulder shoved him right back down before he could lift an inch then the rest of the boys were piling in the van with various degrees of excitement and quiet respected mixed in with the,

Hey, Cap’s. 

Steve just started handing out files. 

They took them quietly, glances at each other, at Steve and Peggy for a moment, then noses were turning down and papers were silently, obediently being opened and memorized. 

Fuck, he’d never been so goddamn relieved in his life to see his boys. Obviously, they were here, obviously, they came to help but goddamn, that was Timothy Dugan sitting beside him, twirling his moustache with a finger while he panned down another page of notes.

Lieutenant Falsworth Montgomery making a quiet noise as he recognized the sketch of the knife, the knife that’d set off the triggered attack Steve caught on recorder and had transcribed in steady looping handwriting on the next page. 

The jeep bumped over snow and rough terrain and the only sound was the whistling, howling wind and turning pages as his squad slipped right into place where they belonged. 

 

Peggy was the one moving the canvas flap back and forth, communicating with the three in the front about coordinates and updates. The rest of them had briefly introduced themselves to Sousa as he was sitting back here, but were too busy to care what SSR agents they’d brought along for backup. 

Until the minute the jeep rolled to a stop, and Peggy flipped back the canvas all the way to drag a weapon box into the back, start getting ready, and the Commandos finally saw the three driving. 

“Stark!”

“And Mr. Jarvis,” Morita elbowed excitedly, to Carter’s rolling eyes. She and Daniel both excused themselves to squeeze past the Commandos, head out for the bitter snow.

Which left no barrier between them and the front, then Jack was turning to grab the ammunition bag and Monty saw him, froze instantly, and suddenly the Commandos all cared a lot about the agents brought along. 

“Why’s this guy here? Aren’t you the one who got Steve shot??”

Well, if they weren’t paying attention before. 

Excitement swapped for bitter glares and raised eyebrows and disbelieving points and Thompson stared wide-eyed at them from the front. 

“What??”

That’s right, he still had no idea he’d gotten Steve shot on their last mission to Russia. God, to think those were _simpler times_.

Steve slammed a clip into his handgun, teeth grit as he glared viciously down black metal instead of those stupid fucking wide steel blues. 

“Fuckin’ wish that was the worst thing he did.”

The Commandos all exchanged glances, various degrees of protective mixed with _what in hell is going on_. 

“What the fuck is worse than a bullet in your shoulderblade, Rogers?” Dugan finally managed, incredulous and backed by a dozen wild looks between the blonde in the cockpit and the one slamming weapons together. 

Steve stood, scooping up his shield with a metal clank, fists curled so tight leather gloves were creaking but he couldn’t hear anything over the pound of his heart. 

_The fuck is worse than a bullet in your shoulderblade, Rogers?_

“His cock in my best friend,” Steve grit, slamming the shield onto his back, one hand on the edge of the jeep to rock it hard as he swung to the ground, landing hard in a puff of freezing snow to swirl up in the whipping wind. 

If everyone’s eyes weren’t fucking huge before.

“What the fuck,” Morita stated flatly, then five heads were swiveling over to stare at Thompson. He’d already retreated, slamming a rifle case shut and hopping out the front of the jeep before he could get jumped by five soldier boys who shot first and asked questions later. 

“Holy fuck,” Dernier agreed, the only words in English he ever bothered with. A hand lifted as he squinted at the retreating blonde, turning to Gabe to say conspiringly in French, “He does _look_ like Steve.”

“Mais il n’est pas Steve,” Gabe pointed out. _But he's not Steve._

“I did not see that comin’,” Dugan piped up and Monty shook his head once, headed straight for the back of the jeep. 

“I’m gonna check on Rogers.” 

A few nods and clapped shoulders as he leaped down to the snow, another puff of white bursting into the air as Dugan twirled his mustache and turned to the rest of the boys with one eyebrow up.

“Wait, what's this do to the betting pool?”

“Shut up,” Jones told him over the very loud sound of a half dozen eyerolls. 

 

The crunch of the snow gave him away, but it was too cold to worry about wiping away tear streaks and everyone was goddamn sniffling anyways. 

Besides. He wasn't depressed, he was fuckin’ pissed. 

Pretty sure the bunched up broad blue shoulders turned away from the keep said that clear enough, but a concerned glove clapped down on one anyways. 

“Are you alright, Steve?” Monty asked quietly and Steve flipped the safety back on his pistol. 

“No,” he bit, teeth still ground tight together. 

Falsworth had literally just heard him admit to his best friend sleeping with his worst enemy and he was asking Steve if he was _alright?_

“How did this...how did this happen?” The hand on his shoulder didn't budge when he tried to shake it off and something bubbled up hard in Steve’s throat. 

The only person stubborn enough to out stubborn his pissiness was Buck, Bucky who hadn't stood by him and demanded sincere answers for what felt like months now. 

Bucky, who he'd been shoving away since the goddamn moment Steve dragged Jack Thompson into their lives. 

Yeah, that was _him_ who started all the drama, who crossed the first line and broke every boundary and basically sentenced Bucky to exactly this. 

“It's long. And complicated,” Steve managed, but suddenly the tightness in his throat was making him choke. Here he was all pissed when the boys were trying to help and. And. 

“And it's actually all my fault,” he rushed, trying to blink too fast for the tears to start pooling. The corners of his eyes were burning, wind whipping and lashes threatening to freeze and he hadn't had the chance to cry yet, to cry at all and his stupid fucking star sign was a Cancer which meant he was supposed to cry all the time and he fucking felt like crying all the time but he'd spent his entire life shoving everything into this impenetrable bottle and just looking down at the ground until he stopped wanting to bawl his eyes out but the ground was drifting swirls of snow and it kept blowing away with the wind and swirling around his ankles and it was so pure crystal white and the dark red of his boots reflected red on the shine like the explosions of blood from their guns and Bucky’s stitching fingers in the winter and he didn't fucking wanna cry. 

A convulsion seized his chest too quick to stop a single damn tear and the next thing he knew the leather gloves covering his face weren't enough to stop the blubbering. 

“I don't. I don't want to lose him, Monty I don't know what I'd do without him, I’m so fucking scar--”

Cracking like ice at the bottom of a mountain and Monty tsked once, squeezing Steve’s shoulder and tugging until he tipped over weakly and two strong arms were wrapping around his back. 

He barely lasted a second’s protest before he was clinging to the back of Monty’s jacket and everything had just been way too much for way too long and _Bucky wasn't okay_ and Steve really really wasn't okay either. 

Maybe he squeezed a little too tight, if Falsworth’s shallow breaths indicated anything but he hadn’t been hugged in so long, hadn’t even had Buck’s arm wrapped protectively around his neck and he’d grown so used to that and it felt like he hadn’t been touched in years and everything was falling apart and

“It's Sarge, you don't have to worry.” A solid hand rubbing back and forth over his shoulders as Monty tried to console. “We’ll get him back, Cap. You always have.”

You always have.

Yeah, maybe that was half the problem, shit like this kept _happening_. He could spend the rest of his existence never leaving Bucky’s side and all the times they’d been ripped apart would have been enough to count for a lifetime of separation. 

Steve just shook and tried really hard not to cry, buried here in Monty’s snowy jacket.

The telltale crunch of more snow and another hand landed on his spine, Dugan’s deep teasing voice just barely getting through in the wind. 

“Let me have at him.” Dum-Dum jostled them playfully and Steve choked a laugh, then Dugan was quite sincerely pulling him into a crushing hug and Steve let himself be small, frozen corners of his eyes melting a little over Dugan’s collar but he doubted the man cared an inch. 

Still, he was being ridiculous, they needed to save Bucky right now and he was having a goddamn breakdown but he’d fucking missed his family, he’d missed being clapped on the shoulder and jostled and laughed with and he missed Bucky so so so much, he even missed _Peggy_ , she’d been so wrapped up in everything lately and it was all just way too much.

“I'm sorry,” he choked pitifully, probably looking like the biggest fucking joke ever in the tight red white and blues while he cried all over his fellow soldiers. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Don't you say none of that,” Dugan scolded, pulling back to clap a solid hand on Steve’s arm, gripping him tightly while Steve sucked in a freezing breath and wiped red gloves over the cold, hard tracks on his face. 

“You boys don’t deserve any of this, I’m so sorry I--”

“How long have you been in love with him?” Dugan interrupted, bordering on soft with a twitch of his mustache and Steve was made of ice, staring right at the frozen snowflake on the tip of the broad bowler hat and running back through the past ten seconds, letting the words sink in for the fourth, fifth times. 

Then both gloves were covering his face and Steve broke right down sobbing. 

“I d-don't know, I have no idea, I d-dont. I. I can't. _C-can’t_ \--” Buried in creaking, stiff red and Dugan’s hands were on his shoulders again, mouthing at a wide-eyed Lieutenant over Steve’s ducked, snowflake littered blonde head, 

_Go get Miss U._

Falsworth took off in search of Carter and Dugan sucked in a puff of smoky air, choking a bit on the pure snowflakes he just shoved into his lungs. 

The thing is, the boys and him had all known a lot about Bucky and Steve for a long time now. During the war they'd admittedly talked about it more than once - the most memorable being the time that Barnes actually _overheard_ , something about sticks up asses and whatnot. 

They'd of course, never blatantly approached either of them about it. Obviously. 

It was the war, The WAR. Even if it wasn't, there were plenty of horror stories about men being blue carded, kicked out, dishonorably discharged, even the terrifying whisper of left on the battlefield to die, sent into suicide missions just cause they got caught in the heat with another man. 

And they all knew them well enough to know they weren't actually sleeping together - but that the way they looked at each other when the other was turned away said a hell of a lot more than even a shaking tent and shouts in the night would have. 

When the war ended, everyone had made _I knew it_ faces of amusement when they found out Barnes and Rogers were still living together. Again, obviously. 

They'd all just kinda figured that they'd either figure it out on their own. Without the war or sickness in the way, there was no reason for them to not finally get their heads out of their asses, fess up and finally look each other in the _eyes_ with that desperate, homesick love they both carried so goddamn close for the other. 

Apparently, though? 

Apparently they hadn't figured it out. They'd all been pretty concerned after Thanksgiving, but from what they heard snooping and eavesdropping on the bathroom and closet doors, it looked like things could still work out. 

But now? 

Dugan really wasn't so sure. Wasn't so sure about the whole let-them-figure-it-out thing. Cause based on the way Rogers looked like he wanted to puke, they were deeper in this shit than ever and that light at the other end looked pretty fuckin' dim. 

You know what, though?

It wasn't the war anymore. 

It wasn't the war anymore, and Dugan had a responsibility to his boys, and he couldn't let this happen to the goddamn sun and moon. God knows what would happen to the rest of them on earth when those two fell out of orbit. 

He choked on another snowflake and then he was shoving Rogers, shaking him by the shoulder and trying to get that streaked, red face out from behind the redder gloves.

“Cap.”

“Rogers.”

“ _Steve_.” Finally the blues peered out from over the top of the gloves, sniffling and overwhelmed and totally torn to pieces and Dugan tipped his head, sighing soft and sad. 

“You know whatever time you have, he's been in love with you twice as long.” 

It was the honest to god truth, and he’d never seen blue eyes go wider, never seen that All American protest hit faster, harder.

“ _No,_ ” Steve instantly disputed and it wasn’t a hollow protest, he meant it, and that shocked Dugan enough to make him take a surprised step backwards, eyebrows lifting up even higher than his hat. 

“The fuck do you mean _no_? The serum make you blind, Rogers?”

“Dugan, fucking stop it.” Steve shoved crossly at Tim’s chest, sending him back another foot and he just went with it, stumbling a tad as he started to seriously cognize the look on that broken, pretty face.

“You can't seriously think--”

“I don't think!! I know!!” That was full, sincere Steve Rogers as Mr. America ever got. That was the Captain he knew, the strong soldier he knew, that was spitting right back at him with all the sincerity those curled fists fought with. “And I know I. I did more than ruin everything, it's so much worse than that, I might never _see_ him again--”

The first warm thing he’d felt since he lept down into the snow, or maybe the past month and a half. Gloves tugged off with teeth under unpainted lips, shoved in a pocket so her bare fingertips could cup Steve’s face, lift the devastated head out from the deep he was crumbling towards, turning the spitfire mouth silent with the gentle press of her thumb to trembling lips. 

“Shhh. Oh, none of that.” A tsking tongue and Peggy took his face in both her palms, looking him dead in the eyes as her thumbs slid higher to thumb over his cheeks, the snowflakes and watery ice clinging to long long eyelashes. “He'll be fine, sweetheart. You've saved him from worse things than this, okay?”

There really wasn’t anything to do but nod and Peggy made a quiet sound of sympathy, reaching up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the cold, hollow skin of Steve’s cheek. 

She lingered more than a moment too long but Steve’s eyes were closed and his gloves were closed around her wrists and he’d been so goddamn distraught for so long, it was amazing he’d lasted this long before breaking down. 

His outburst of violence at Thompson earlier was the first explosion from all that build-up, but as much as he’d grown up swinging fists, Steve couldn’t hide the softness under that hard blue shell if he tried. 

So she’d happily take the place of the usual feisty brunette to rub away Rogers’ tears. Especially since the boy who usually took such good care of him was the whole reason he was falling apart. 

“How about we get you in the rest of that uniform, alright?” She offered him the most hopeful, sincere smile she could, reaching around one of those broad, slumped shoulders to take the signature helmet Dernier was holding out. 

Steve ducked his head and Peggy pressed another quick kiss to his crown before fitting the helmet over all that frozen blonde, careful as she lined up the A in the center and pressed down so it slid over the top curve of that strong nose. 

“Tell you what,” Carter smiled, tapping the star in the center of his chest, all supportive and soft over the pounding of his impossible broken heart. “With protection and colors as nice as these? I’m sure glad you kept that uniform.” 

Peggy was smiling prettily and the boys were clapping his shoulders and everyone was ready to go, weapons drawn with the faint outline of a building in the distance and Steve just stared at the white blank snow. 

I’m sure glad you kept that uniform. 

_You gonna keep the uniform?_ Bucky leaned over to ask, one eyebrow cocked, crooked smile over the teasing tip of his head and. 

Teasing. 

Flirting? 

Maybe. 

There really wasn’t. A non-flirting explanation for that moment, like at all, but. Fuck. 

Well. It didn’t matter if Bucky was flirting with him or not, he wasn't gonna touch what Dugan just accused them both of with a twenty foot pole. 

But Bucky voluntarily slept with Jack Thompson and that. 

That, that said a lot. 

How could he be so blind? 

The wind conveniently chose that moment to whip more snow in his eyes and Steve ducked his head against the wind, wishing he had damn goggles, and a mask for his nose and mouth or something, this snow was killing him. The only parts he wanted covered were the ones exposed, of fucking course. 

Bucky slept with Jack Thompson, the same soldier stomping through snow six feet behind him. 

Bucky _chose_ that. 

Thankfully Carter was taking point with him anyways, and the wind was so goddamn loud there wasn’t anything to worry about as he leaned over a little closer, asked under the hush of his breath.

“How did I not...Peggy, how didn't I know? That Bucky was...interested in--” Steve stumbled over all of it but he just couldn’t quite fathom it, that this was his best friend, his best friend he’d been inseparable from since the time they were children, his other half who had a secret that literally changed _everything_ , if Buck was interested in. In. 

“Men?” She offered and it was the obvious flick of her eyebrow upward that made it finally sink in. 

All this time, he’d had no goddamn idea.

“How did I not…”

“He's always been quite good at wearing masks, darling.” Peggy hoisted her gun a little higher and Steve shook his head once as she pinned him with that very sincere, unarguable face. “It's not your fault.” 

“But it is my fault! I should've. I've never--” 

“Shh. Steve, I know it’s a lot, but we can figure out _all_ of that later, alright? Let’s just get him back first.” 

He huffed once, taking an extraneously large step over a snow bluff, squinting into the snow at the looming warehouse up ahead. Get him back. 

That was the one thing in life Steve hadn’t fucked up yet.

“Alright. Listen up, everyone. Here’s the plan.”

 

The doors weren’t wide enough for both teams to go through at once, and none of the scouts could find another entrance, so Peggy’s team waited, flanking Rogers’ V to the left. Looks exchanged and Carter gave the all ready signal, holding eye contact with Steve as long as she could. 

A collective breath and a red boot was flying, kicking open the heavy steel doors with a burst of aimed guns and that big red white and blue shield in front. 

They were ready to raid, every single one of them with sights on the targets that were supposed to be lining the hallways, the guards that were supposed to be in the rafters. 

But it was empty. Entirely, completely, empty. 

Peggy’s team - the SSR boys minus Howard (he was in the getaway jeep ready to go just in case) and plus Morita - had swung around to the left, guns poised and eyes narrowed but now they were looking around wildly, glancing between the rest of the team and the perfectly empty corridor. 

There was absolutely nothing here. No lights, no people, positively no sign of life. 

Which left only two options, really. Either the coordinates were wrong, or this place had been abandoned a hell of a long time ago. 

Well actually, there was a third option, but it seemed pretty damn unlikely right until Jones almost rolled his foot on something. 

He cursed, jumping back a step and Steve swooped down, picking up the empty shell. 

Normally, that wouldn’t mean a single damn thing. After all, they’d suspected this place to be a shipping center during the war, it only made sense that there were empty shells around.

Only it was still warm. 

Option number three?

Someone tipped off Hydra before they got here. 

Which meant there was someone on the inside. 

There was no time to turn to Peggy and spurt off his theory, especially when everyone here would hear (it never crossed Steve’s mind that it could be Carter, obviously, it was not Peggy Carter), and Peggy didn’t bother turning to Steve to offer the same suggestion because she knew no matter what she said, Steve would insist on searching the base anyways. 

So by mutual non-communicative agreement they both gave each other a look and continued with the plan, which was splitting up from the get go. 

Beta team went straight for the stairs, even though everyone offered to switch the two rolls, Sousa insisted he’d be fine, he could literally climb stairs with his crutches, he wouldn’t be _that_ slow. 

So Carter’s team followed her upstairs and Steve’s team followed him further down the hallway, and that’s when the power cut. 

 

 

Of all things to be upset about right now, she should be the most upset about giving up her cushy little space in the Griffith, right next door to a surprisingly formidable, surprisingly attractive agent who might have a bit of potential in the future, if she weren’t so wrapped up in her friends. 

But even moreso than potential, Miss Peggy Carter had some _lovely_ little tools. For example, she’d found the most _delectable_ lip color in Miss Carter’s collection, that she just happened to be wearing tonight. 

And while she was sure Miss Carter had found some lovely uses for it, Dottie was quite sure she’d never had it used against herself and they always say, do to others what you would want done to yourself. 

Whoever they was, Dottie was quite glad to get the opportunity to try on this positively _knockout_ brand. 

It was almost too easy, waiting for them in the shadows as they bumbled their way up the stairs, a little hoard of SSR agents. 

One she didn’t recognize, and one she recognized strangely enough as Howard Stark’s butler, and. 

Well that was odd. Rogers wasn’t with them. Why wouldn’t he be with them? 

He must have decided to take the first floor by himself. Well that was fine, he’d be met with the little ambush of useless guards she’d set outside the torture chamber door. Captain America was formidable, but he wasn’t going to be able to stand alone against _those_. 

So the plan wouldn’t be bad - take out Carter, and while the SSR agents lost their mind trying to help her back to her feet, she’d slip down to the first floor and deal with Rogers herself, if the guards hadn’t already. Then her precious cargo would be shipped out back and they’d find a new place to go train with all of their threats long gone and out of the way. 

All Peggy Carter had to do was take three steps closer. 

 

There was lots they prepared you for before they sent you off to fight a war. 

Pretty blondes stepping out of the shadows and planting bright red lips on your mouth was not one of them. 

The second Dottie’s mouth was on hers, the tingles went down her spine and Peggy’s eyes went wide, taking in the ten dozen sensations. 

The hands framing her face were soft, delicate. Blonde curls in her peripherals, brilliant flashing blues, the distant gentle smell of perfume. And the lips against her own, which shouldn’t be so shocking because she’d kissed enough people in her life to think she’d covered what it’d be like but this was some other world. Soft and pliant even when they were pressing so hard, the slightest stick of red, smearing lipstick then Underwood was pulling back with this mischievous, waiting look that was...wow, really fuzzy. 

Wait, she knew that smell--

“You’re...wearing my brand,” Peggy managed, and that was the last thing she managed before Dottie was giving her the brightest smile before a spinning background and her backpack of supplies was hitting the ground, her shoulder and head to follow. 

“Carter!” 

And the rest of it faded right out of sight. 

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

It wasn’t quite pitch black, which was the worst part. There was a streak of light behind him, just enough to give everything silhouettes of pure-black against the almost-black walls. The silhouettes moved, shifted, rolling away from him and slip, the entire world out from under his feet. 

Or maybe that was the drugs, he wasn’t sure. 

His throat was on fire and so was the muscle just above his right knee. Vastus Medialis. He had no idea how he knew or remembered that, but that’s what it was called and someone kept holding a fucking candle to it, he’d swear. 

The planes of existence - XYZ, three clear crystal lines - were just warped, like everything solid had suddenly turned spherical, the ground tipping backwards beneath his spine and each piece of black silhouette three times closer than he thought they were every time someone lit a match and a tiny burst of blue sparks, red fire illuminating sharp angles of faces before everything went black again. 

They kept asking him things and he’d said something, he’d said enough things to recognize it hadn’t been quiet for a long time but he wasn’t sure what parts were his brain while he slept and while parts were when the hell did I close my eyes. 

Limbs stuffed with styrofoam, anchored to the world with hinges and heavy gloves that didn’t touch him at all, gliding like water over the skin of a duck. Two days, seventeen years, thirty seven seconds, they were all the same and what was upside down again?

When the door burst open, the sound took an extra two hours to reach his ears, and when it did he could _not_ decide what the hell that sound could possibly be. 

There were two hands on his stomach, pushing in against his ribs and the empty twist of organs underneath skin that wasn’t really him because he was his fingertips, red hot coals burning warm before fading with the smell of faint smoke--

A fist pushed up his chin and Bucky’s head rolled, skull slotting between a dozen knuckles as the fluttering blinds in front of his eyes wheeled open for a moment or two. 

The silver streak was bigger than he remembered and he knew he was supposed to be acting okay, supposed to smile and sit still but for some reason his skin wasn’t attached close enough to his bones and it kept trying to shake off of him. 

Three words floated over the edges of the sphere and he’d reach out to grab them if he knew how to move. 

It was an order, the words in a particular order _were_ an order which didn’t make a lot of sense but he wasn’t sure how to obey because his mouth might be somewhere in another reality, another universe, he was pretty positive it wasn’t this one. 

Talk to me. 

Talk to me, talk to me, me talk to, meto talk totalk me--

“Do you have his weight?”

“I can’t reach the straps, dammit.” 

He could reach the straps. He just wiggled his fingers and he could feel his straps across his wrists. This was _his_ vertical table dammit. It was a little tilty though, but if you wheeled it out and came up from behind you could reach the straps. 

Clearly, his wiggling fingers weren’t saying that as loudly as he’d hoped. Funny, everything else was so goddamn loud. 

Up down and sideways all decided to play merry go round for a minute and Bucky would shout at them to cut it out except that he was suddenly very acutely aware that he was falling, which was not good, because he didn’t have hands or legs to catch himself with. 

Someone was shoving a jar with a heartbeat in it up against his ear and he just hoped there wasn’t blood dripping down his face because of it, he didn’t want to be covered in anything else slick. 

The arms attached to his fine china shoulders were inside out, bone all wrapped around the outside with the weirdest running flesh beneath, locked in L shapes. There were a lot of shapes, but not one of these silhouettes were familiar. Turtles, they all were turtles. 

Or wait, there were turtle shells on their heads. 

Helmets! Those were army helmets. 

And fuck, those were Steve’s hands. Wow, shit, that was a literal _exact_ copy of Steve’s hands. That was remarkable. 

Ring around the rosie, he used to hold those hands for that and now he wasn’t holding anything but he was definitely falling again, except now he wasn’t touching anything either. 

Still had the bone L in his lap. His knees were closer to his face than he remembered them being, and he was bouncing now and wow, wait, look. Maybe he was outside. That was a _star_. 

And fuck, it burned to touch. Or maybe that was his fingertip burning, he didn’t know how long ashtrays stayed lit. 

“Cap, Dernier found a room with medical supplies, do you think we should carry him there? It’s just a ways to the plane and I don’t think--”

“Show me where.” 

Oh hoh, boy, he knew that voice. Did he ever. That was one hell of a voice. 

Coming from inside this very chest here, the one with the star he was poking because that’s where his face was. His feet were dangling in the air and one of his arms was still locked up but his head had a nice blue cushion and there were hands on his back and he kept bouncing as the world moved all around the star.

“Bucky, you’ve gotta cut it out. C’mon, Buck, _c’mon_ \--”

He was doing something wrong. Oh no, he didn’t wanna do anything wrong, especially when Stevie was talking like that, although he really couldn’t hear much over that loud, low whine that was trying to vibrate the L bone right out of his lap. 

Brides. For some reason, this had something to do with brides. 

Cold metal hit his ass first. He tried to scramble away, then hands were pushing him back down and Bucky just whipped his head, tried to kick and punch to get free only his arms weren’t his and he didn’t know what legs those were and there was copper in his mouth, no no. 

The swirling tunnel suddenly came to a sharp halt, trapped between two doors and the hands on his cheeks, jaw, holding him steady in place and that’s when the light came on. 

He would’ve cowered from it, only there was suddenly a hand shielding his eyes from the worst of it and Bucky blinked, and blinked again. Electric blue. Electricity, burning blue, and the sharp shadows painted the skeleton underneath instead of skin but it was still incredibly, unmistakably, his best friend.

“Steve,” Bucky breathed, “Steve, Steve, Steve.” 

“ _Buck_ ,” Steve pleaded back at him. Fuck, he sounded sad. 

“I’m sorry,” he rushed, maybe a little too fast and marbled to understand so he went again, and again, “I’m sorry, I’m so sos orry--”

“It’s okay.” The promise was laid in place with tightening fingers in the sides of his skull, threaded through damp hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re gonna be okay.” 

“Can you keep him calm, Cap? We’re gonna cut off the wrappings on his arm, we can’t help him if we don’t know what’s--”

“Just do it. Do it, I’ll do what I goddamn can. Bucky, can you look at me?”

“I am,” he murmured back, wishing he could rub Steve’s arms until he stopped looking so cold. 

Hey, maybe that was the smoke. See, he couldn’t be all gone, he could still recognize cold smoke from hot smoke. Cold from hot. Although yikes, he had no idea which one he was right now. 

“Can you hold me?” Bucky asked, polite and honest as he knew how and Steve cursed, pressing a hand hard over his heart. Pound pound. Pound. 

“Does anyone see water?”

“There’s a faucet over here!”

“Okay, bucket, someone find a bucket--”

“Mason jar? I’d wash it out first, fuck knows what was in there.”

“Mon Dieu.” 

“Morita, can you--”

“What the _fuck_ is that??”

“Steve, _don’t_.”

“What the _fuck_ is on hi--”

“Rogers! Do you want to fucking help? Don’t fucking _look_. I’ll call Carter right back in here, you want me to do that? You can worry about the rest of him when he’s back in his fucking _head_.”

“I’m right, here,” Bucky pointed out, except without the pointing part because no one had introduced him to his arms anytime recently. He knew a lot of people in this room. Don’t make any sudden moves. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“If we can’t get him lucid before the jeep ride, how do you think all that snow is gonna be? _Now_ , Private.”

It hit him like a very fast, very cold train. 

Bucky inhaled so sharp and fast he got some of the water in his lungs, jolted up from the table and choking, then Steve’s hands were pulling him onto his side and Bucky went easy, pliant as rotting wood while Steve held him up and he choked, and choked, and was never gonna stop fucking coughing. 

Jesus fuck, his lips were wet and it tasted like copper again. Copper steel gold sunshine beach warmth snow--

The world was spinning, except it wasn’t this world it was the other planet that he’d been on, the upside down switched reality of everything and the dark was screaming at the corners of his throat but his ribs were coughing up through his esophagus and if he coughed enough maybe he’d float away for the rest of forever. 

But there was this impossible grip burning five-pointed stars into his bicep, shoulder, and Bucky would be falling if it weren’t for those hands. No choice but to trust the hands, trust the grip and let himself choke until his throat was burning. 

Fire, snow. 

Black, cold, his hair was wet and his wrists couldn’t move and his elbows were in L’s and he wanted to scream but he didn’t have sound left, nothing but blood spitup that’d become death and dry heaving. 

Eventually, some piece left of his brain recognized that his body wasn’t jolting anymore, stomach seizing and curling in angrily against him and all he could do was groan, tip into Steve’s hands and close his eyes against the bursts of angry pain. 

“Fuuuck,” he managed and a loose, barely-there cheer went up behind him. The Commandos. Of fucking course, somehow, they were here. Who else would be there to rescue him but his ragtag team from way back when. 

He managed to wave a single hand, barely keeping himself upright as he croaked, hoarse and half-dead and shaky to all hell,

“Took y’all long enough. What, they uninvent the damn tele-ph-ph--” His stomach dragged him into another round of gagging on whatever the fuck they’d sent down his throat. If the water still dripping off his face didn’t smell like 80% chemical mud, he’d beg for a drink but he was pretty sure he’d heard something about snow earlier, he could definitely wait on the throat soothing for something a little cleaner. 

God, speaking of which. 

“M’sorry,” he managed to choke out to Steve, who was probably splatted with peripheral spray of everything from spit to blood to whatever the fuck else he coughed up. Rogers didn’t seem fazed though. Not by that at least, shaking his head once as he kept his hands on Bucky’s skin and it slowly, wonderfully sunk in that he hadn’t kissed death. 

“Sarge? Are you gonna be okay to walk?”

It sounded like Monty was behind him and Bucky swiveled slowly, the room’s walls spinning on a different axis than he was, but he managed to turn enough to see the rest of them, his boys. All rugged, just a touch more cleaned up than he remembered them during the war, but scruffier than Thanksgiving’s niceties at Jones’ ma’s place. 

He was really getting out. Not that he’d ever doubted that. When he was lucid, anyways. Which wasn’t often. _Fuck_ , his head fucking hurt. Had it always been that heavy? Motherfucker. 

“Buck, we gotta get outta here.” Rogers sounded so damn apologetic and Bucky pried open squinting eyes, tipping his heavy-ass head for what he was pretty sure was the door. 

“M’good. Lead the way, C-Cap.” The second his feet hit the floor his teeth were shattering. No, chattering, that’s the word he was looking for even if it kinda felt like the former. 

“Jones, can you pocket those bottles? And the needles. Take anything to Stark you can.” Orders were being given over their conjoined shoulders and Bucky limped a little harder into Steve’s side. Dugan stood strong on the other side, Bucky’s arm carefully over his shoulder, wrapped back up with a half-assed version of the L-cast he’d had on it earlier but his mouth was way too dry to bother asking what the fuck any of that was about. 

They hit the hallway and there were more people out here, people suddenly uncrowding from the floor and he didn’t know what was happening here either but suddenly there was Carter’s voice, not all that less woozy than he felt. 

A lot of concrete, really cold concrete then a door swung open and he was walking in snow without shoes, which really did wonders for shocking every system in his body back into some sort of rapid functioning, like rusty cogs suddenly all shoved together and spun hard enough that pieces of rust were spraying off in all directions as they learned how to work together again without learning at all. 

“F-fuck, it’s cold, it’s really f-fuckin’ cold,” he managed to mutter and Steve was whispering apologies, arms wrapped around his waist tighter. 

Lots of crunching, crunching snow as someone ran ahead then there were hands lifting him up into something wood, back of a cargo truck as more hands wrapped blankets around him and he was just a cocoon, if he couldn’t move before he definitely couldn’t move now. 

Steve folded him in half at the waist, knees, propping him like a doll on the floor of the truck, in a corner so his back was supported, his sideways tipping shoulders were supported then someone was sliding in close beside him, warm, smelled really nice, like a distant, faint conditioner or soap or something so he was gonna go with Peg. 

Rescue missions really were not as fun as they sounded. His feet were so fucking cold he couldn’t feel them anymore but he couldn’t feel many parts of his body so that was fine.

This sucked. This sucked a lot. 

“Did you. You guys get. Dottie?” He managed to croak and a hand reached over, a little shaky through the layered gloves, the two dozen bulky coats Peggy was wearing, her hair up high in a ponytail, all slick and beautiful, almost surreal without the familiar bouncy curls. 

“Don’t worry about anything. We’ve got you now, and we know she’s the one who took you.”

“Th-there was. Someone else, and--”

“Bucky. I promise, this is Steve and I, we didn’t miss anything. You can tell us what you know when you’ve slept, okay? When’s the last time those pretty eyes closed to sleep?”

It was scolding and light and terribly awful at hiding the exhaustion. 

“I could ask the same,” he shot back tiredly, head tipping to lean against the wall of the jeep, crawling forcibly into the body he’d been out of for seven hundred years, a curl of a smile on frozen lips as he looked down his nose at the pretty pale lips pursing, no curls to bounce as she ducked her head with a smile and by god, Peggy was lovely. 

Covered in soot, smeared red and dirt and snow, ice on her eyelashes and nose redder than her lipstick usually was and Bucky was pretty sure he’d never seen a woman so beautiful in his entire life. God, that was gonna be one lucky man someday. He sure damn hoped whoever it was appreciated that dimpled hiding smile. 

He didn’t realize he was still shaking until Peggy’s hand landed on his thigh. It was such an instantaneous slide down from the other universe he almost begged her to keep her hand there for the rest of forever. How was he supposed to put on a pretty mask, be okay when he couldn’t feel the ground? 

Cold. He was just cold. That’s the only reason why he was shivering. It was the fucking cold. It was the cold. 

That was also why he couldn’t stop shaking. He’d be fine the moment he was warm. 

His feet were blue, bare and roughed up and sticking out the end of the blanket. Feet were the first thing Bucky always covered when he was coverin’ up freezing little Stevie. 

Looks like we’re not in Brooklyn anymore, Toto. 

“I can drive, so Stark can try’n figure out what’s in his system?” 

There had been voices this whole time, some that made him want sleep and others that made him shift and wonder why he wasn’t dancing but he hadn’t heard that voice yet. 

That was Jack Thompson. 

His eyes shot wide, and before he could open his mouth to say a single word, the hand on his leg patted him once and _mute_. 

She could’ve seen anything, everything, the look on his face, how much she knew, they all knew, he didn’t know--

“Do you remember that dinner date you took me on,” Peggy asked slowly and Bucky blinked back onto the graph, settling back into straight horizon lines as he furrowed his eyebrows and tried to listen. “--when we danced, and you accused me of all the boys chasing me?”

He did remember that. 

He couldn’t believe that him was also this him, but he remembered that. 

A petulant, broken child’s doll as he rolled his head on the side of the jeep to look at her, blink to nod and the corners of his mouth were turned up, he was sure of it. 

“I must say,” Peggy’s accent was thick, the sweet lilt of teasing in her voice even thicker. “I think you have just as many after you, now.”

Bucky smiled. He didn’t mean for it to be sad. 

It was always him to be the ones to make the jokes in the dire situations but here they were dire, and Peggy was smiling her joke across the jeep into the skin of his blanket. 

“Let’s see, there’s Howard, who can’t stop fretting over you. Sousa, who was more worried than I’ve seen him in ages, Jack, who can’t decide to stare at you or never look at you again. And Steve. Of course, Steve.”

Peggy said it, and Bucky looked down at the dirt between his purple tinged feet and didn’t think at all. 

“And then there’s me,” she continued, leaning in like she had a secret to tell and Bucky was full to the goddamn brim with secrets but Peg was shaking the snow off his eyelashes and he blinked wide-eyes at her and kept her in focus for just long enough. 

“--then there’s me, who’s just about ready to kick your ass for stealing all of them out from under me.”

Bucky laughed and Peggy laughed, head tipping into his, ponytail sliding over the wall loudly. It was hollow behind his sternum and the laugh kept bouncing and echoing around like the coughs did but only nine thousand times quieter, or maybe he wasn’t making a sound and Peg’s head was on his shoulder, brown eyes peering up at him all watery cold and tired and sweet. 

“So who are you going to chose?” 

He’d dipped her in the middle of a dance floor when he asked, but he was the one falling down through space and time as she asked now, trying to keep his mind from wandering deeper while they talked about goddamn _boys_ of all things but maybe it was helping or maybe he needed to try harder but either way he gave her the most honest smile he could without freezing tear tracks over trains.

“Sleep,” he offered weakly. “I choose sleep.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from Cab Calloway and His Orchestra's [Saint James Infirmary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_XYweNu3oQ)
> 
>  
> 
> Okay so I know right now you're probably like what the fuck is going on
> 
> I promise everyone else is like that too but everything will make more sense in the next chapter I just want to stop the 30k chapters cha feel. but I will explain all of your million questions and the general fuckery of what's happening 
> 
> I love you all so much for sticking in there with me while shit went down irl. I have a really really cool angle to go towards with this story now, and this is kinda the shifting point so if everything feels weird, that is why. basically this is like. part 2 ish. Season 2. idk. 
> 
> anyways, I hope you keep on enjoying, and I promise, our boys will have good things happen to them soon okay very good things just be patient it will be worth it, I promise
> 
> xx


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